Part 29 (1/2)
The echo from the rose-red fortifications took it up first; then one chanting voice after another, monotonously insistent.
”Prayer is more than sleep! than sleep! than sleep!”
And the city woke to another day of fasting. Woke hurriedly, so as to find time for food ere the sun rose, for it was Rumzan, and one-half of the inhabitants would have no drop of water till the sun set, to a.s.suage the terrible drought of every living, growing thing beneath the fierce May sun. The backwaters lay like a steel mirror reflecting the gray shadowy pile of the Palace, the poojari--waist-deep in them--was a solitary figure flinging water to the sacred airts, absorbed in a thorough purification from sin.
Then from the serrated line of the Ridge came a bugle followed by the roll of a time gun. All the world was waking now. Waking to give orders, to receive them; waking to mark itself apart with signs of salvation; waking to bow westward and pray for the discomfiture of the infidel; waking to stand on parade and salute the royal standard of a ruler, h.e.l.l-doomed inevitably, according to both creeds.
A flock of purple pigeons, startled by the sound, rose like cloud flakes on the light gray sky above the glimmering dome of the big mosque, then flew westward toward the green fields and groves on the further side of the town. For the roll of the gun was followed by a reverberating roll, and groan, and creak, from the boat-bridge. The little cloud on the Meerut road had grown into five troopers das.h.i.+ng over the bridge at a gallop recklessly. The poojari, busy now with his pigments, followed them with his eyes as they clattered straight for the city gate. They were waking in the Palace now, for a slender hand set a lattice wide. Perhaps from curiosity, perhaps simply to let in the cool air of dawn. It was a lattice in the women's apartments.
The poojari went on rubbing up the colors that were to bring such spiritual pride to the wearers, then turned to look again. The troopers, finding the city gate closed, were back again; clamoring for admittance through the low arched doorway leading from Selimgarh to the Palace. And as the yawning custodian fumbled for his keys, the men cursed and swore at the delay; for in truth they knew not what lay behind them. The two thousand from Meerut, or some of them, of course.
But at what distance?
As a matter of fact only one Englishman was close enough to be considered a pursuer, and he was but a poor creature on foot, still dazed by a fall, striking across country to reach the Raj-ghat ferry below the city. For when Jim Douglas had recovered consciousness it had been to recognize that he was too late to be the first in Delhi, and that he could only hope to help in the struggle. And that tardily, for the Arab was dead lame.
So, removing its saddle and bridle to give it a better chance of escaping notice, he had left it grazing peacefully in a field and stumbled on riverward, intending to cross it as best he could; and so make for his own house in Duryagunj for a fresh horse and a more suitable kit. And as he plodded along doggedly he cursed the sheer ill-luck which had made him late.
For he was late.
The five troopers were already galloping through the grape-garden toward the women's apartments and the King's sleeping rooms.
Their shouts of ”The King! The King! Help for the martyrs! Help for the Holy War!” dumfoundered the court muezzin, who was going late to his prayers in the Pearl Mosque; the reckless hoofs sent a squatting bronze image of a gardener, threading jasmine chaplets for his G.o.ds peacefully in the pathway, flying into a rose bush.
”The King! The King! Help! Help!”
The women woke with the cry, confused, alarmed, surprised; save one or two who, creeping to the Queen's room, found her awake, excited, calling to her maids. ”Too soon!” she echoed contemptuously. ”Can a good thing come too soon? Quick, woman--I must see the King at once--nay, I will go as I am if it comes to that.”
”The physician Ahsan-Oolah hath arrived as usual for the dawn pulse-feeling,” protested the shocked tirewoman.
”All the more need for hurry,” retorted Zeenut Maihl. ”Quick! Slippers and a veil! Thine will do, Fatma; sure what makes thee decent----” She gave a spiteful laugh as she s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the woman's head and pa.s.sed to the door; but there she paused a second. ”See if Hafzan be below. I bid her come early, so she should be. Tell her to write word to Hussan Askuri to dream as he never dreamed before! And see,” her voice grew shriller, keener, ”the rest of you have leave. Go! cozen every man you know, every man you meet. I care not how. Make their blood flow! I care not wherefore, so that it leaps and bounds, and would spill other blood that checked it.” She clenched her hands as she pa.s.sed on muttering to herself. ”Ah! if _he_ were a man--if _his_ blood were not chilled with age--if I had someone----”
She broke off into smiles; for in the anteroom she entered was, man or no man, the representative of the Great Moghul.
”Ah, Zeenut!” he cried in tones of relief. ”I would have sought thee.”
The trembling, shrunken figure in its wadded silk dressing gown paused and gave a backward glance at Ahsan-Oolah, whose shrewd face was full of alarm.
”Believe nothing, my liege!” he protested eagerly. ”These rioters are boasters. Are there not two thousand British soldiers in Meerut? Their tale is not possible. They are cowards fled from defeat; liars, hoping to be saved at your expense. The thing is impossible.”
The Queen turned on him pa.s.sionately. ”Are not all things possible with G.o.d, and is not His Majesty the defender of the faith!”
”But not defender of five runaway rioters,” sneered the physician. ”My liege! Remember your pension.”
Zeenut Maihl glared at his cunning; it was an argument needing all her art to combat.
”Five!” she echoed, pa.s.sing to the lattice quickly. ”Then miracles are about--the five have grown to fifty. Look, my lord, look! Hark! How they call on the defender of the faith.”
With reckless hand she set the lattice wide, so becoming visible for an instant, and a shout of ”The Queen! The Queen!”
mingled with that other of ”The Faith! The Faith! Lead us, Oh!
Ghazee-o-din-Bahadur-shah, to die for the faith.”
Pale as he was with age, the cry stirred the blood in the King's veins and sent it to his face.