Part 63 (1/2)
There was a flood of it now outside the ruth as it lumbered along by the jail, not a quarter of a mile yet from the city gate.
Half-s.h.i.+vering she peeped through the gay patchwork curtains to a.s.sure herself it held no horror.
G.o.d and his Holy Prophet! What was that crowd on the road ahead? No, not ahead, she was in it, now, so that the oxen paused, unable to go on. A crowd, a cl.u.s.ter of spear-points, and then, against the jail wall, an open s.p.a.ce round another ruth, an Englishman on foot, three figures stripped. No; not three! only two, for one had fallen as the crack of a carbine rang through the startled air. Two? But one, now, and that, oh! saints have mercy! the vision! the vision! It was Abool, dodging like a hare, begging for bare life; seeking it, at last, out of the suns.h.i.+ne, under the shadow of the ruth wheels.
”Abool! Abool!” she screamed. ”I am here. Come! I am here.”
Did he hear the kind voice? He may have, for it echoed clear before the third and final crack of the carbine. So clear that the driver, terrified lest it should bring like punishment on him, drove his goad into the oxen; and the next instant they were careering madly down a side road, b.u.mping over watercourses and ditches. But Newasi felt no more buffetings. She lay huddled up inside, as unconscious as that other figure which, by Major Hodson's orders, was being dragged out from under the wheels and placed upon it beside the two other corpses for conveyance to the city. And none of all the crowd, ready--so the tale runs--to rescue the Princes lest death should be their portion in the future, raised voice or hand to avenge them now that it had come so ruthlessly, so wantonly. Perhaps the English guard at the Delhi gate cowed them, as it had cowed those who the day before had followed the King so far, then slunk away.
So the little _cortege_ moved on peacefully; far more peacefully than the other ruth, which, with _its_ unconscious burden, was racing Kutb-ward as if it was afraid of the very suns.h.i.+ne. But the Princess Farkhoonda, huddled up in all her jewels and fineries, had forgotten even that; forgotten even that vision seen in it.
But Hodson as he rode at ease behind the dead Princes seemed to court the light. He gloried in the deed, telling himself that ”in less than twenty-four hours he had disposed of the princ.i.p.al members of the House of Timoor”; so fulfilling his own words written weeks before, ”If I get into the Palace, the House of Timoor will not be worth five minutes' purchase, I ween.” Telling himself also, that in shooting down with his own hand men who had surrendered without stipulations to his generosity and clemency, surrendered to a hundred troopers when they had five thousand men behind them, he ”had rid the earth of ruffians.” Telling himself that he was ”glad to have had the opportunity, and was game to face the moral risk of praise or blame.”
He got the former unstintingly from most of his fellows as, in triumphant procession, the bodies were taken to the chief police station, there to be exposed, so say eye-witnesses, ”In the very spot where, four months before, Englishwomen had been outraged and murdered, in the very place where their helpless victims had lain.”
A strange perversion of the truth, responsible, perhaps, not only for the praise, but for the very deed itself; so Mohammed Ismail's barter of his truth and soul for the lives of the forty prisoners at the Kolwab counted for nothing in the judgment of this world.
But Hodson lacked either praise or blame from one man. John Nicholson lay too near the judgment of another world to be disturbed by vexed questions in this; and when the next morning came, men, meeting each other, said sadly, ”He is dead.”
The news, brought to Kate Erlton by Captain Morecombe when he came over to report another failure, took the heart out of even her hope.
”There is no use in my staying longer, I'm afraid,” she said quietly.
”I'm only in the way. I will go back to Meerut; and then home--to the boy.”
”I think it would be best,” he replied kindly. ”I can arrange for you to start to-morrow morning. You will be the better for a change; it will help you to forget.”
She smiled a little bitterly; but when he had gone she set to work, packing up such of her husband's things as she wished the boy to have with calm deliberation; and early in the afternoon went over to the garden of her old house to get some fresh flowers for what would be her last visit to that rear-guard of graves. To take, also, her last look at the city, and watch it grow mysterious in the glamour of sunset. Seen from afar it seemed unchanged. A ma.s.s of rosy light and lilac shadow, with the great white dome of the mosque hanging airily above the smoke wreaths.
Yet the end had come to its four months' dream as it had come to hers.
Rebellion would linger long, but its stronghold, its very _raison d'etre_, was gone. And Memory would last longer still; yet surely it would not be all bitter. Hers was not. Then with a rush of real regret she thought of the peaceful roof, of old Tiddu, of the Princess Farkhoonda--Tara--Soma--of Sri Anunda in his garden. Was she to go home to safe, snug England, live in a suburb, and forget? Forget all but the tragedy! Yet even that held beautiful memories. Alice Gissing under young Mainwaring's scarf, while he lay at her feet. Her husband leaving a good name to his son. Did not these things help to make the story perfect? No! not perfect. And with the remembrance her eyes filled with sudden tears. There would always be a blank for her in the record. The Spirit which had moved on the Face of the Waters, bringing their chance of Healing and Atonement to so many, had left hers in the shadow. She had learned her lesson. Ah! yes; she had learned it. But the chance of using it?
As she sat on the plinth of the ruined veranda, watching the city growing dim through the mist of her tears, John Nicholson's words came back to her once more, ”If ever you have the chance”; but it would never come now--never!
She started up wildly at the clutch of a brown hand on her wrist--a brown hand with a circlet of dead gold above it.
”Come!” said a voice behind her; ”come quick! he needs you.”
”Tara!” she gasped--”Tara! Is--is he alive then?”
”He would not need the mem if he were dead,” came the swift reply.
Then with her wild eyes fixed on another gold circlet upon the wrist she held, Tara laughed shrilly. ”So the mem wears it still. She has not forgotten. Women do not forget, white or black”--with a strange stamp of her foot she interrupted herself fiercely--”come, I say, come!”
If there had been doubts as to the Rajpootni's sanity at times in past days, there was none now. A glance at her face was sufficient. It was utterly distraught, the clutch on Kate's arm utterly uncontrolled; so that, involuntarily, the latter shrank back.
”The mem is afraid,” cried Tara exultantly. ”So be it! I will go back and tell the master. Tell him I was right and he wrong, for all the English he chattered. I will tell him the mem is not suttee--how could she be----”
The old taunt roused many memories, and made Kate ready to risk anything. ”I am coming, Tara--but where?” She stood facing the tall figure in crimson, a tall figure also, in white, her hands full of the roses she had gathered.
Tara looked at her with that old mingling of regret and approbation, jealousy and pride. ”Then she must come at once. He is dying--may be dead ere we get back.”
”Dead!” echoed Kate faintly. ”Is he wounded then?”