Part 44 (2/2)
”Learned!” he echoed sharply. ”You've learned everything, my dear lady, necessary to salvation. That's the worst of it! Your chatter to Tara--I hear when you think I am asleep. You draw your veil over your face when the water-carrier comes to fill the pots as if you had been born on a housetop. You--Mrs. Erlton! If I were not a helpless idiot I could pa.s.s you out of the city to-morrow, I believe. It isn't your fault any longer. It's mine, and Heaven only knows how long. Oh!
confound that thrumming and drumming. It gets on my nerves--my nerves!--pshaw!”
It was then that Kate declared that she would really send Tara----
”Mrs. Erlton presents her compliments to the Princess Farkhoonda Zamani, and will be obliged,” jested Jim Douglas; then paused, in truth more irritated than amused, despite the humor on his face. And suddenly he appealed to her almost pitifully, ”Mrs. Erlton! if anyone had told you it would be like this--your chance and mine--when the world outside us was alive--was struggling for life--would you--would you have believed it?”
She bent to push the chicken tea to a securer position. ”No,” she said softly; then to change the subject, added, ”How white your hands are getting again! I must put some more stain on them, I suppose.” She spoke regretfully, though she did not mind putting it on her own. But he looked at the whiteness with distinct distaste.
”It is with doing nothing and lying like a log. Well! I suppose I shall wake from the dream some day, and then the moment I can walk----”
”There will be an end of peace,” she interrupted, quite resolutely. ”I know it is very hard for you to lie still, but really you must see how much safer and smoother life has been since you were forced to give in to Fate.”
”And Kate,” he muttered crossly under his breath. But she heard it, and bit her lip to prevent a tender smile as she went off to give an order to Tara. For the vein of almost boyish mischief and lighthearted recklessness which showed in him at times always made her think how charming he must have been before the cloud shadowed his life.
”The master is much better to-day, Tara,” she said cheerfully. ”I really think the fever has gone for good.”
”Then he will soon be able to take the mem away,” replied the woman quickly.
”Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?” asked Kate with a smile, for she had grown fond of the tall, stately creature, with her solemn airs of duty, and absolute disregard of anything which came in its way. The intensity of the emotion which swept over the face, which was usually calm as a bronze statue, startled Kate.
”Of a truth I shall be glad to go back. The Huzoors' life is not my life, their death not my death.”
It was as if the woman's whole nature had recoiled, as one might recoil from a snake in the path, and a chill struck Kate Erlton's heart, as she realized on how frail a foundation peace and security rested. A look, a word, might bring death. It seemed to her incredible that she should have forgotten this, but she had. She had almost forgotten that they were living in a beleagured city, though the reverberating roll of artillery, the rush and roar of sh.e.l.ls, and the crackle of musketry never ceased for more than a few hours at a time.
She was not alone, however, in her forgetfulness. Half Delhi had become accustomed to cannon, to bugles and fifes, and went on its daily round indifferently. But in the Palace the dream grew ominously thin once or twice. For not a fraction remained in the Treasury, no effort to collect revenue had been made anywhere, and fat Mahb.o.o.b, the only man who knew how to screw money out of a stone, lay dying of dropsy. And as he lay, the mists of personal interest in the future dispersing, he told his old master, the King, some home truths privately, while Ahsan-Oolah, the physician, administering cooling draughts as usual, added his wisdom to the eunuch's. There was no hope where there was no money. Life was not worth living without a regular pension. Let the King secure his and secure pardon while there was yet time, by sending a letter to the General on the Ridge, and offering to let the English in by Selimgarh and betray the city. When all was said and done, others had betrayed _him_, had forced _his_ hand; so let him save himself if he could, quietly, without a word to any but Ahsan-Oolah. Above all, not one word to Zeenut Maihl, Hussan Askuri, and Bukht Khan--that Trinity of Dreams!
With which words of wisdom mayhap lightening his load of sins, the fat eunuch left the court once and for all. So the old King, as he sat listening to the quarrels of his Commander-in-Chief, had other consolation besides couplets; and when he wrote
”No peace, no rest, since armies round me riot, Life lingers yet, but ere long I shall die o't,”
he knew--though his yellow, wax-like mask hid the knowledge from all--that a chance of escape remained.
The old King's letter reached the Ridge easily. There was no difficulty in communication now. Spies were plentiful, and if Jim Douglas had been able to get about, he could have set Major Erlton's mind at rest without delay. But Soma positively refused to be a go-between; to do anything, in short, save secure the master's safety.
And the offer of betrayal arrived when the man who held command of the Ridge felt uncertain of the future; all the more so because of the telegrams, the letters--almost the orders--which came pouring in to take Delhi--to take it at once! Early in the month, the gamester's throw of a.s.sault had been revived with the arrival of reinforcements, only to be abandoned once more, within an hour of the appointed time, in favor of the grip-of-death. But now, though the whisper had gone no further than the General's tent, a third possibility was allowed--retreat. The six thousand were dwindling day by day, the men were half dead with picket duty, wearied out with needless skirmishes, crushed by the tyranny of bugles and fifes.
If this then could be? There was no lack of desire to believe it possible; but Greathed of the politicals, and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe shook their heads doubtfully. Hodson, they said, had better be consulted. So the tall man with the blue hawk's eyes, who had lost his temper many times since that dawn of the 12th of June, when the first a.s.sault had hung fire, was asked for his opinion.
”We had a chance at the beginning,” he said. ”We could have a chance now, if there was someone--but that is beside the question. As for this, it is not worth the paper it is written on. The King has no power to fulfill his promise. He is virtually a prisoner himself. That is the truth. But don't send an answer. Refer it, and keep him quiet.”
”And retreat?”
”Retreat is impossible, sir. It would lose us India.”
”Any news, Hodson?” asked Major Erlton, meeting the free-lance as he rode back to his tent after his fas.h.i.+on, with loose rein and loose seat, unkempt, undeviating, with an eye for any and every advantage.
”None.”
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