The Mercy of the Lord Part 22

Hus.h.!.+ a voice from outside, a reply from the bald-headed watcher within. More questions, more replies, both growing in urgency in appeal. Then a pause and retreating footsteps.

"What is it, Iman Khan?" she questioned dully, as the old man stole over to her and laid his forehead in the dust.

"What this slave has feared, has waited for all the hours," he whispered, whimperingly. "They know--Huzoor----" he pointed to the bed.

"Or, at least, they have suspicion that a man is here. And they must search--they will search--or kill. I have sent them to await the Huzoor's decision."

She stood up, still clasping her babe, the boy slipping, half-asleep, to the ground, and looked round at those other women--those other children who had lost their all. And hers lay here....

"They must come," she said in a m.u.f.fled voice. Then she bent over her husband. "Will!" she whispered, bringing him back from confused, half-restful dreams, "the Sepoys say they must search--or--or kill--them all. We will hide you--if we can."

If we can! Was it possible, she wondered, feeling dead, dead at heart, as the door opened wide, letting in the sunlight and showing a group of tense womanhood, a bed whereon, huddled up asleep or awake, lay the children deftly disposed to hide all betraying contours.

"Huzoor! salaam!" said the tall _subahdar_, drawing himself up to attention, and the search party of four followed suit.

How long that minute seemed. How interminable the sunlight. Ah! would no one shut out the light, and why did Sonnie move his hand?...

"Huzoor! Salaam!"

Oh! G.o.d in heaven! were they going? Was the door closing? Was the blessed darkness coming?...

It was utter darkness, as, her strength giving way, she fell on her knees beside the bed, burying her face upon her children, her husband.

"Will! Will!" she whispered.

A faint sigh came from the watching women. So Fate had been kind to her--her only....

One who had seen her husband shot down before her very eyes rose slowly, and taking her baby from the bed, moved away, rocking it in her arms almost fiercely. So, in the grim intensity of those first seconds, the sound of further parley at the door escaped them.

Then, in the ensuing pause, old Iman Khan's bald head was in the dust once more, his voice, scarce audible, seemed to fill the room.

"Huzoor! They have seen. He must go forth or they will kill--all."

The words, half-heard, seemed to rouse the wounded man to his manhood.

He raised himself in bed, he staggered to his feet; so stood, swaying unsteady, yet still a man. "All right--I'll go--Let me out, quick--quick----"

But someone stood between him and the door. It was Ensign Hector Clive.

His face was pale as death, his hands twitched nervously, but in the semi-darkness his eyes blazed, his chin looked square and set.

"No, sir," he said quietly, "this is my chance. Look here! I ran and hid in the pa.s.sage-way when the others--died like men--I couldn't help it--perhaps if they had had the chance I had--but that's nothing!--nothing! I heard--I understand their lingo. They don't know you're here, sir--only a man--let me be a man--for once. It is my chance----"

His eyes sought the Colonel's wife in bitter appeal.

Swift as thought she answered it. Her hand was on her husband's shoulder to hold him back, for she saw in a flash what others might not see--a martyrdom of life, soul warring with frail flesh, for this boy.

"Let him go, Will," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "As he says, it is his chance."

There was a faint stir amongst the listeners. The Colonel shook himself free from his wife's detaining hand. The code of conventional honour was his, in all its maddening lack of comprehension.

"Stand back, please--and you, Mr. Clive, obey orders--I--I----" He reeled and would have fallen, but for the bed against which he sank.

His wife was on her knees beside him.

"Let him go, Will. It is his chance, give it him, for G.o.d's sake!"

There was no answer. Unconsciousness had come to bring the silence which gives consent, and she stood up again, stepped to the lad and laid her lips on his forehead.

"Thank you, dear--in the name of all these--thanks for a brave deed."

The blood surged up to his face. A boyish look of sheer triumph transfigured it as he paused for an instant to throw off his coat and tighten his waistband.

"I shall have my chance, too," he cried exultantly, "for I was always a good runner at school!"

Aye! a good runner, indeed! With the wild whoop of a schoolboy at play, he was across the barrack square, untouched. Once over that low wall in front and he would be in cover. He rose to the leap lightly, and for an instant he showed in all the pathetic beauty of immature strength, all the promise of what might lie hidden in the future, against the red flare of the sunlit sky, against the glorious farewell which is true herald of the rising of another day. Then he threw his arms skywards and fell, shot through the heart.

He had had his chance!

THE FLATTERER FOR GAIN

Prem Lal, census enumerator, raised to that fleeting dignity by reason of his being a "middle fail" student (as those who have at least gone up for the Middle School examination style themselves in India), paused in his ineffectual attempt to write with a fine steel nib on the fluttering blue paper held--without any backing--in his left hand, and, all unconsciously, gave the offending pen that sidelong, blot-scattering flick which the native reed requires when it will not drive properly.

Then he coughed a deprecating cough, and covered the previous act--natural enough in one whose ancestors, being of the clerkly caste, had spent long centuries in acquiring and transmitting it--by displaying his Western culture in another way.

"Now for the next 'adult' or 'adulteress' in this house," he said pompously in polyglot.

The grammatical correctness of his genders pa.s.sed unchallenged by his half-curious, half-awe-stricken audience. The blue paper, ruled, scheduled, cla.s.sified, contained an unknown world to that patriarchal party a.s.sembled in the sleepy suns.h.i.+ne which streamed down on the roof set--far above the city, far above Western civilisation--under the sleepy suns.h.i.+ny sky; so it might well hold stranger things to its environment than untrustworthy feminines.

"There is the grandfather's father, Chiragh Shah, Huzoor," replied a man of about thirty who, standing midway between the real householder and his grandsons, had a.s.sumed the responsibility of spokesmans.h.i.+p in virtue of his possibly combining old wisdom and new culture. He used the honorific t.i.tle "Huzoor" not to Prem Lal--whom he gauged scornfully to be a mere schoolboy, and a Hindoo idolator to boot--but to the blue paper which represented the alien rulers, who were numbering the people for reasons best known to themselves.

A stir came from the door c.h.i.n.k behind which the females of the family were decorously hiding their indignant anxiety.

"Yea! let the old man go forth," shrilled a voice to which none in that household ever said nay. "He is past his time--let them take his brains if they will, and leave virtuous women alone. Who are we, to be registered as common evil walkers?"

Even Prem Lal grew humble instantly.

"Nay! mother," he said apologetically, in unconscious oblivion of his own previous cla.s.sification. "The Sirkar suggests no impropriety. We seek but to know such trivials as age--s.e.x--if idiot, cripple, spinster, adult or adult----"

"Let Chiragh Shah go forth to him," interrupted the hidden oracle with opportune decision. "Lo! his midday opium is still in his brain. Let it bring peace to him and the eater thereof."

The c.h.i.n.k widened obediently, disclosing a fluttering and scattering of dim draperies. So, roused evidently from a doze in the inner darkness, a very old man shuffled out into the suns.h.i.+ne, then stopped, blinking at it as if, verily, he found himself in some new and unfamiliar world.

"The Sirkar hath sent for thee, grandad," bawled the appointed spokesman in his ear. "They need----"

But the words were enough. The blank, dazed look pa.s.sed into a sudden alacrity which took years from the old body as it sat it a-trembling with eagerness.

"The Sirkar," he echoed. "It is long since I, Chiragh Shah--long since----" He relapsed as suddenly into dreams. His voice failed as if following the suit of memory, but he supplied the lack of both by a smile which spoke volumes.