Part 32 (2/2)

Kate put out hers softly and touched them. Still warm, still life-like, their companions.h.i.+p thrilled her through and through. With a faint sob, she sank on her knees beside the bed and laid her cheek on them. Let death come and find her there! Let the finish of the race, which was the win and the lose----

”Mrs. Erlton! quick, please!”

Jim Douglas' voice, calling to her from outside, roused her from a sort of apathy into sudden desire for life; she was out in the veranda in a second.

”The game's up,” he said, scarcely able to speak from breathlessness; and his horse was in a white lather. ”I had to see to the Seymours first, and now there's only one chance I can think of--desperate at that. Quick, your foot on mine--so--from the step---- Now your hand.

One! two! three! That's right.” He had her on the saddle before him and was off through the gardens cityward at a gallop. ”The 54th came down from the cantonments all right,” he went on rapidly, ”but shot their officers at the church--the city scoundrels are killing and looting all about, but the main-guard is closed and safe as yet. I got Mrs. Seymour there. I'll get you if I can. I'm going to ride through the thick of the devils now with you as my prisoner. Do you see--there at the turn. I'll hark back down the road--it's the only chance of getting through. Slip down a bit across the saddle bow. Don't be afraid. I'll hold as long as I can. Now scream--scream like the devil.

No! let your arms slack as if you'd fainted--people won't look so much--that's better--that's capital--now--ready!”

He swerved his horse with a dig of the spur and made for the crowd which lay between him and safety. The words describing the rape of the Sabine women, over the construing of which he remembered being birched at school, recurred to him, as such idle thoughts will at such times, as he hitched his hand tighter on Kate's dress and scattered the first group with a coa.r.s.e jest or two. Thank Heaven! She would not understand these, his only weapons; since cold steel could not be used, till it had to be used to _prevent_ her understanding. Thank Heaven, too! he could use both weapons fairly. So he dug in the spurs again and answered the crowd in its own kind, recklessly. A laugh, an oath, once or twice a blow with the flat of his sword. And Kate, with slack arms and closed eyes, lay and listened--listened to a sharper, angrier voice, a quick clash of steel, a shout of half-doubtful, half-pleased derision from those near, a jest provoking a roar of merriment for one who meant to hold his own in love and war. Then a sudden bound of the horse; a faint slackening of that iron grip on her waist-belt. The worst of the stream was past; another moment and they were in a quiet street, another, and they had turned at right-angles down a secluded alley where Jim Douglas paused to pa.s.s his right hand, still holding his sword, under Kate's head and bid her lean against him more comfortably. The rest was easy. He would take her out by the Moree gate--the alleys to it would be almost deserted--so, outside the walls, to the rear of the Cashmere gate. They were already twisting and turning through the narrow lanes as he told her this. Then, with a rush and a whoop, he made for the gate, and the next moment they had the open country, the world, before them. How still and peaceful it lay in the suns.h.i.+ne! But the main-guard was the nearest, safest shelter, so the galloping hoofs sped down the tree-set road along which Kate generally took her evening drive.

”And you?” she asked hurriedly as he set her down at the moat and bade her run for the wicket and knock, while he kept the drawbridge.

He shook his head. ”The reliefs from Meerut must be in soon. If they started at dawn, in an hour. Besides, I'm off to the Palace to see what has really happened; information's everything.”

She saw him turn with a wave of his sword for farewell as the wicket was opened cautiously, and make for the Moree gate once more. As he rode he told himself there should be no further cause for anxiety on her account. De Tessier's guns were in the main-guard now, and reinforcements of the loyal 74th. They could hold their own easily till the Meerut people smashed up the Palace. They could not be long now, and the city had not risen as yet. The bigger bazaars through which he cantered were almost deserted; everyone had gone home. But at the entrance to an alley a group of boys cl.u.s.tered, and one ran out to him crying, ”Khan-sahib! What's the matter? Folk say people are being killed, but we want to go to school.”

”Don't,” said Jim Douglas as he pa.s.sed on. He had seen the schoolmaster, stripped naked, lying on his back in the broad daylight as he galloped along the College road with Kate over his saddle-bow.

”_Ari_, brothers,” reported the spokesman. ”He said '_don't_,' but he can know naught. He comes from the outside. And we shall lose places in cla.s.s if we stop, and others go.”

So in the cheerful daylight the schoolboys discussed the problem, school or no school; the Great Revolt had got no further than that, as yet.

But there was no cloud of dust upon the Meerut road, though straining eyes thought they saw one more than once.

CHAPTER IV.

NOON.

But if the schoolmaster of one school lay dead in the sunlight there was another, well able to teach a useful lesson, left alive; and his school remains for all time as a place where men may learn what men can do.

For about three hundred yards from the deserted College, about six hundred from the main-guard of the Cashmere gate, stood the magazine, to which the two young Englishmen, followed by a burlier one, had walked back quietly after one of them had remarked that he could hold his own. For there were gates to be barred, four walls to be seen to, and various other preparations to be made before the nine men who formed the garrison could be certain of holding their own. And their own meant much to others; for with the stores and the munitions of war safe the city might rise, but it would be unarmed; but with them at the mercy of the rabble every pitiful pillager could become a recruit to the disloyal regiments.

”The mine's about finished now, sir,” said Conductor Buckley, saluting gravely as he looked critically down a line ending in the powder magazine. ”And, askin' your pardon, sir, mightn't it be as well to settle a signal beforehand, sir; in case it's wanted? And, if you have no objection, sir, here's Sergeant Scully here, sir, saying he would look on it as a kind favor----”

A man with a spade glanced up a trifle anxiously for the answer as he went on with his work.

”All right! Scully shall fire it. If you finish it there in the middle by that little lemon tree, we shan't forget the exact spot. Scully must see to having the portfire ready for himself. I'll give the word to you, as your gun will be near mine, and you can pa.s.s it on by raising your cap. That will do, I think.”

”Nicely, sir,” said Conductor Buckley, saluting again.

”I wish we had one more man,” remarked the Head-of-the-nine, as he paused in pa.s.sing a gun to look to something in its gear with swift professional eye. ”I don't quite see how the nine of us are to work the ten guns.”

”Oh! we'll manage somehow,” said his second in command, ”the native establishment--perhaps----”

George Willoughby; the Head-of-the-nine, looked at the sullen group of dark faces lounging distrustfully within those barred doors, and his own face grew stern. Well, if they would not work, they should at least stay and look on--stay till the end. Then he took out his watch.

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