Part 55 (1/2)

”It is foolishness!” she said fiercely. ”The mems cannot be suttee. I will not have it.”

Kate stared at her. ”But I must----” she began.

”There is no must at all,” interrupted Tara superbly; ”I will find some other way.” And then she bent over quickly, and Kate felt her hands upon her hair. ”There is plenty left,” she said with a sigh of relief. ”I will plait it up so that no one will see the difference.”

And she did. She put the gold bangle on again also, and by dawn the next day Kate found herself once more installed as a screened woman; but this time as a Hindoo lady under a vow of silence and solitude in the hopes of securing a son for her lord through the intercession of old Anunda, the Swami.

”I have told Sri Anunda,” said Tara with a new respect in her manner.

”I had to trust someone. And he is as G.o.d. He would not hurt a fly.”

She paused, then went on with a tone of satisfaction, ”But he says the mem could not have been suttee, so that foolishness is well over.”

”But what is to be done next, Tara?” asked Kate, looking in astonishment round the wide old garden, arched over by tall forest trees, and set round with high walls, in which she found herself. In the faint dawn she could just see glimmering straight paths parceling it out into squares; and she could hear the faint tinkle of the water runnels. ”I can't surely stop here.”

”The mem will only have to keep still all day in the darkest corner with her face to the wall,” said Tara. ”Sri Anunda will do the rest.

And when Soma returns he must take the mem away before the thirty regiments come and the trouble begins.”

”Thirty regiments!” echoed Kate, startled.

”He and others have gone out to see if it is true. They say so in the Palace; but it is full of lies,” said Tara indifferently.

It was indeed. More than ever. But they began to need confirmation, and so there was big talk of action, and jingling of bits and bridles and spurs in the city as well as in the camp. They were to intercept the siege train from Firozpur; they were to get round to the rear of the Ridge and overwhelm it. They were to do everything save attack it in face.

And, meanwhile, other people besides Soma and such-like Sadducean sepoys had gone out to find the thirty regiments, and secret scouts from the Palace were hunting about for someone to whom they might deliver a letter addressed

”To the Officers, Subadars, Chiefs, and others of the whole military force coming from the Bombay Presidency:

”To the effect that the statement of the defeat of the Royal troops at Delhi is a false and lying fabrication contrived by contemptible infidels--the English. The true story is that nearly eighty or ninety thousand organized Military Troops, and nearly ten or fifteen thousand regular and other Cavalry, are now here in Delhi. The troops are constantly engaged, night and day, in attacks on the infidels, and have driven back their batteries from the Ridge. In three or four days, please G.o.d, the whole Ridge will be taken, when every one of the base unbelievers will be sent to h.e.l.l. You are, therefore, on seeing this order, to use all endeavors to reach the Royal Presence, so, joining the Faithful, give proofs of zeal, and establish your renown.

Consider this imperative.”

But though they hunted high and low, east, north, south, and west, the Royal scouts found no one to receive the order. So it came back to Delhi, damp and pulpy; for the rains had begun again, turning great tracts of country into marsh and bog, and generally wetting the blankets in which the sepoys kept guard sulkily.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

They drenched Kate Erlton also, despite the arcaded trees above her corner as she sat with her face to the wall in the wide old garden. At first her heart beat at each step on the walk behind her, but she soon realized that she was hidden by her vow, happed about from the possibility of intrusion by her penance. But not many steps came by her; they kept chiefly to the other end of the garden where Sri Anunda was to be found. It was a curious experience. There was a yard of two of thatch, screened by matting and supported by bamboos, leaning not far off against the wall; and into this she crept at night to find the indulgence of a dry blanket. At first she felt inclined to seek its shelter when the rain poured loudly on the leaves above her and fell thence in big blobs, making a noise like the little ripe figs when the squirrels shook them down; but the remembrance that such women as Tara performed like vows cheerfully kept her steady. And after a day or two she often started to find it was already noon or dusk, the day half gone or done. Time slipped by with incredible swiftness in watching the squirrels and the birds, in counting the raindrops fall from a peepul leaf. And what a strange peace and contentment the life brought! As she sat after dark in the thatch, eating the rice and milk and fruit which Tara brought her stealthily, she felt, at times, a terrified amaze at herself. If she ever came through the long struggle for life, this surely would be the strangest part of the dream. Tara, indeed, used to remark with a satisfied smile that though the mem could not of course be suttee, still she did very well as a devoted and repentant wife. Sri Anunda could never have had a better penitent.

And then, in reply to Kate's curious questions, she would say that Sri Anunda was a Swami. If the mem once saw and spoke to him she would know what that meant. He had lived in the garden for fifteen years.

Not as a penance. A Swami needed no penance as men and women did; for he was not a man. Oh, dear no! not a man at all.

So Kate, going on this hint of inhumanity, and guided by her conventional ideas of Hindoo ascetics, imagined a monstrosity, and felt rather glad than otherwise that Sri Anunda kept out of her way.

She was eager also to know how long she might have to stay in his garden. The vow, Tara said, lasted for fifteen days. Till then no one would question her right to sit and look at the wall; and by that time Soma would have returned, and a plan for getting the mem away to the Ridge settled. For the master was evidently not going to return to the city; perhaps he had forgotten the mem? Kate smiled at this, drearily, thinking that indeed he might; for he might be dead. But even this uncertainty about all things, save that she sat and watched the squirrels and the birds, had ceased to disturb her peace.

As a matter of fact, however, he was thinking of her more than ever, and with a sense of proprietors.h.i.+p that was new to him. Here, by G.o.d's grace, was the one woman for him to save; the somebody to kill, should he fail, needing no selection. There were enough enemies and to spare within the walls still, even though they had been melting away of late. But a new one had come to the Ridge itself, which, though it killed few, sapped steadily at the vigor of the garrison. This was the autumnal fever, bad at Delhi in all years, worse than usual in this wet season, counterbalancing the benefit of the coolness and sending half a regiment to hospital one day and letting them out of it the next, sensibly less fit for arduous work. It claimed Jim Douglas, already weakened by it, and made his wound slow of healing.

”You haven't good luck certainly,” said Major Erlton, finding him with chattering teeth taking quinine dismally. ”I don't know how it is, but though I'm a lot thinner, this life seems to suit me. I haven't felt so fit for ages.”