Part 27 (2/2)

What did it mean? Soma held his breath hard. Hark! what was that? A louder burst of that recurring cry, ”To Delhi! to Delhi!” as the last stragglers of the 3d Cavalry, escaping from the lines at the long-delayed appearance there of law and order, followed their comrades' example.

So that the two thousand coming down in force found nothing but the women and children; poor, frightened, terror-struck hostages, left behind, inevitably, in the unforeseen success.

But Soma, knowing nothing of this, waited--that grip on his musket slackening--for the next volley. But none came. Only, suddenly, a bugle call.

The retreat!

Incredible! Impossible! Yes! Once, twice, thrice--the retreat! The masters were not going to fight at Meerut then, and he must try Delhi.

So, turning swiftly, he cut into the road behind the cry.

”My G.o.d, Craigie! what's that? Not the retreat, surely!” came a boyish voice from the clatter and rattle of the faithful troop.

”Don't know! Hurry up all you can, Clark! There's more of the devils needing cold steel yonder, and I'd like to see to my wife's safety as soon as I can. _Shah bash bhaiaan Dan-ro. Maro_.”

”Maro--Ma--ro--Ma----roh!” echoed the howl. What was the retreat to them when their Captain's voice called to them as brothers? It is idle to ask the question, but one cannot help wondering if the Captain's pocket still held the official wigging. For the sake of picturesque effect it is to be hoped it did.

Nevertheless it _was_ the retreat. A council of officers had suggested that since the mutineers were not in their lines, they might be looting the European cantonments. So the two thousand returned thither, after firing that one volley into a wood, and then finding all quiet to the north proceeded to bivouac on the parade ground for the night. Not a very peaceful spot, since it was within sight and sound of blazing roof-trees and plundering ruffians. The worst horrors of that night, we are told, can never be known. Perhaps some people beg to differ, holding that no horror can exceed the thought of women and children hiding like hares on that southern side, creeping for dear life from one friendly shadow to another, and finding help in dark hands where white ones failed them, within reach of that bivouac.

But the faithful troop did good service, and many another band of independent braves also. Captain Craigie, finding leisure at last, found also--it is a relief to know--that some of his own men had sneaked away from duty to secure his wife's safety when they saw their Captain would not. And if anything can relieve the deadly depression which sinks upon the soul at the thought of that horrible lack of emotion in the north, it is to picture that very different scene on the south, when Captain Craigie, seeing his only hope of getting the ladies safely escorted to the European barracks lay in his troopers, brought the two Englishwomen out to them and said, simply, ”Here are the mems! Save them.”

And then the two score or so of rough men, swashbucklers by birth and training, flung themselves from their horses, cast themselves at those alien women's feet with tears and oaths. Oaths that were kept.

But, on the other side, people were more placid. One reads of Englishmen watching ”their own sleeping children with grat.i.tude in their hearts to G.o.d,” with wonderings as ”to the fate of their friends in the south,” with antic.i.p.ations of ”what would befall their Christian brethren in Delhi on the coming morn, who, less happy than ourselves, had no faithful and friendly European battalions to s.h.i.+eld them from the bloodthirsty rage of the sepoys.”

What, indeed? considering that for two hours bands of armed men had clattered and marched down that dividing road crying ”To Delhi, to Delhi!” But no warning of the coming danger had been sent thither; the confusion had been too great. And now, about midnight, the telegraph wires had been cut. Yet Delhi lay but thirty miles off along a broad white road, and there were horses galore and men ready to ride them.

Men ready for more than that, like Captain Rosser of the Carabineers, who pleaded for a squadron, a field battery, a troop, a gun--anything with which to dash down the road and cut off that retreat to Delhi.

But everything was refused. Lieutenant Mohler of the 11th offered to ride, and at least give warning; but that offer was also set aside.

And many another brave man, no doubt, bound to obey orders, ate his heart out in inaction that night, possessing himself in some measure of patience with the thought that the dawn must see them on that Delhi road.

But there was one man who owed obedience to none; who was free to go if he chose. And he did choose. Ten minutes after it dawned upon Herbert Erlton that no warning had been given, that no succor would be sent, he had changed horses for the game little Arab which had once belonged to Jim Douglas, and was off, to reach Delhi as best he could; for a woman slept in the very city itself exposed to the first a.s.sault of ruffianism, whom he must save, if he could. So he set his teeth and rode straight. At first down the road, for the last of the fugitives had had a good hour's start of him, and he could count on four or five miles plain sailing. Then, since his object was to head the procession, and he did not dare to strike across country from his utter ignorance both of the way or how to ask it, he must give the road a half-mile berth or so, and, keeping it as a guide, make his way somehow. There were bridges he knew where he must hark back to the only path, but he must trust to luck for a quiet interval.

The plan proved more difficult than he expected. More than once he found himself in danger from being too close to the disciplined tramp which he began to overtake about six miles out, and twice he lost himself from being too far away, by mistaking one belt of trees for another. Still there was plenty of time if the Arab held out with his weight. The night was hot and stifling, but if he took it coolly till the road was pretty clear again he could forge ahead in no time; for the Arab had the heels of every horse in Upper India. Major Erlton knew this, and bent over to pat its neck with the pride of certainty with which he had patted it before many a race which it had won for him since it had lost one for Jim Douglas.

So he saved it all he knew; but he rode fourteen stone, and that, over jumps, must tell. There was no other way, however, that he knew of, by which an Englishman could head that procession of shouting black devils.

One headed already, as it happened; though he was unaware of the supreme importance of the fact, ignorant of what lay behind him. Jim Douglas, who had left Meerut all unwitting of that rescue party on its way to the jail, was still about a mile from the halfway house where he expected to find his relay. He had had the greatest difficulty in getting the drugged mare to go at all at first, and more than once had regretted having refused old Tiddu's advice. She had pulled herself together a bit, but she was in a drip of sweat and still shaky on her feet. Not that it mattered, he being close now to Begum-a-bad, with plenty of time to reach Delhi by dawn.

He rather preferred to pace slowly, his feet out of the stirrups, his slight, easy figure dressed, as it always was when in English costume, with the utmost daintiness, sitting well back in the saddle. For the glamour of the moonlight, the stillness of the night, possessed him.

Everything so soundless save when the jackals began; there were a number of them about. A good hunting country; the memory of many a run in his youthful days, with a bobbery pack, came to him. After all he had had the cream of life in a way. Few men had enjoyed theirs more, for even this idle pacing through the stillness was a pleasure.

Pleasure? How many he had had! His mind, reverting from one to another, thought even of the owner of the golden curl without regret.

She had taught him the religion of Love, the adoration of a spotless woman. And Zora, dear little Zora, had taught him the purity of pa.s.sion. And then his mind went back suddenly to a scene of his boyhood. A boy of eighteen carrying a girl of sixteen who held a string of sea-trout midway in a wide, deep ford. And he heard, as if it had been yesterday, the faint splash of the fish as they slipped one by one into the water, and felt the fierce fighting of the girl to be set down, his own stolid resistance, their mutual abuse of each other's obstinacy and carelessness. Yes! he would like to see his sisters again, to know that pleasure again. Then his mind took another leap. Alice Gissing had not struggled in his hold, because she had been in unison with his ideal of conduct; but if she had not been, she would have fought as viciously, as unconsciously as any sister. Alice Gissing, who---- He settled his feet into the stirrups sternly, thinking of that telegram with its one word ”Come,” which ended so many chances.

Hark! What was that? A clatter of hoofs behind. And something more, surely. A jingle, a jangle, familiar to a soldier's ears. Cavalry at the gallop. He drew aside hastily into the shadow of the arcaded trees and waited.

Cavalry, no doubt. And the moon shone on their drawn sabers. By Heaven! Troopers of the 3d! Half a dozen or more!

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