On the Face of the Waters Part 11

It was not much, but Jim Douglas could supplement the rest. Here was evidently a woman who had lived on bounty, and who was starving for the lack of it. There were hundreds in her position, he knew, even among those whose pensions had been guaranteed; for they had not been paid as yet. The papers were not ready, the tape not tied, the sealing-wax not sealed.

"It will not be for long, Huzoor, and it is only three rupees. I was watching for a neighbor to borrow corn, if I could, and seeing the Huzoor----"

"It is all right, mother," he interrupted rea.s.suringly. "I was coming to pay it. Hold the hand straight and I will count it in. Three rupees for three months; that is nine."

The c.h.i.n.k of the silver had a background of blessings, and Jim Douglas walked on, thinking what a quaint commentary this little incident was on his puzzle. "Ashraf-un-Nissa-Zainub-i-Mahal." "Honor-of-women and Ornament-of-Palaces." If the King's paymaster had thought twice about such things, the poor old lady might not have been starving. He was the real culprit. And three months' delay was not long for sanctions, references, for all the paraphernalia and complex machinery of our Government. But a case like this? He looked up into the star-sprinkled riband of sky between the narrowing housetops, and wondered from how many unseen hearths and unheard voices the cry, "How long, O Lord! How long!" was rising. But even to his listening ear there was no sign, no sound. And as he went on through the bazaars, the crowds were pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing contentedly upon the trivial errands of life, and the twinkling cressets in the shops showed faces eager only after a trivial loss or gain.

And the world of Lucknow was apparently awakening contentedly to a new day, when, before dawn, he pa.s.sed out of it disguised by Tiddu as a deaf-and-dumb driver to the bullock which carried the tattered bell-tent and the tattered staff uniform. It was still dark, but there was a sense of coming light in the sky, and the hum of the housewives'

querns, early at work over the coming day's bread, filled the air like swarming bees. The spectral white shadows of widow-drudges were already at work on the creaking well-gear, and the swish of their reed brooms could be heard behind screening walls.

But on the broad white road beyond the bazaars the fresh perfume of the dew-steeped gardens drifted with the faint breeze which heralds the dawn. And down the road, heard first, then dimly seen against its whiteness, came a band of chanting pilgrims to the Holy River.

"_Hurri Gunga! Hurri Gunga! Hurri Gunga!_"

Jim Douglas, swerving his bullock to give them room, wondered if Tara were among them. What if she were? That lock of hair went with _him_.

So, with a smile, he swerved the bullock back again. There was a hint of a gleaming river-curve through the lessening trees now, and that big black ma.s.s to his left must be the Bailey-guard gate. He could see a faint white streak like a sentry beside it; so it must be close on gunfire. Even as the thought came, a sudden rolling boom filled the silence, and seemed to vibrate against the archway. And hark! From within the Residency, and from far Dilkhusha, the clear glad notes of the reveille answered the challenge; while close at hand the clash of arms told they were changing guards. Then, though he could not see it, the English flag must be rising beyond the trees to float over the city during the coming day.

For one day more, at least.

BOOK II.

THE BLOWING OF THE BUBBLE.

CHAPTER I.

IN THE PALACE.

It was a day in late September. Nearly six months, therefore, had gone by since Jim Douglas had pa.s.sed the Bailey-guard at gunfire, and the English flag had risen behind the trees to float over Lucknow. It floated there now, serenely, securely, with an air of finality in its folds; for folk were becoming accustomed to it. At least so said the official reports, and even Jim Douglas himself could trace no waxing in the tide of discontent. It neither ebbed nor flowed, but beat placidly against the rocks of offense.

But at Delhi there was one corner of the city over which the English flag did not float. It lay upon the eastern side above the river where four rose-red fortress walls hemmed in a few acres of earth from the march of Time himself, and safe-guarded a strange survival of sovereignty in the person of Bahadur Shah, last of the Moghuls. An old man past eighty years of age, who dreamed a dream of power among the golden domes, marble colonnades, and green gardens with which his ancestors had crowned the eastern wall.

The sun shone hotly, steamily, within those four inclosing walls, save on that eastern edge, where the cool breezes from the plains beyond blew through open arches and latticed balconies. For the rest, the palace-fort--shut in from all outside influence--was like some tepid, teeming breeding-place for strange forms of life unknown to purer, clearer atmospheres.

It was at the Lah.o.r.e gate of this Delhi palace that on this late September day a tawdry palanquin, followed by a few tawdry retainers, paused before a cavernous arch, ending the quaint, lofty vaulted tunnel which led inward for some fifty yards or more to another barrier. Here an old man in spectacles sat writing hurriedly.

"Quick, fool, quick! Read, and let me sign," called the huge unwieldy figure in the palanquin, as the bearers, panting under their gross burden, s.h.i.+fted shoulders. Mahb.o.o.b Ali, Chief Eunuch and Prime Minister, groaned under the jolt; it was a foretaste of many to be endured ere he reached the Resident's house, miles away on the northern edge of the river. Yet he had to endure them, for important negotiations were on foot between the Survival and Civilization. The heir-apparent to those few acres where the sun stood still had died, had been poisoned some said; and another had to be recognized. There was no lack of claimants; there never was a lack of claimants to anything within those walls, where everyone strove to have the first and last word with the Civilization which supported the Survival. And here was he, Mahb.o.o.b, Prime Minister, being delayed by a miserable scrivener.

"Read, pig! read," he reiterated, laying his puffy hand on his jeweled sword-hilt; for he was still within the gate, therefore a despot. A few yards further he would be a dropsical old man; no more.

"Your slave reads!" faltered the editor of the Court Journal.

"Mussamat Hafzan's record of the women's apartments being late to-day, hath delayed----"

"'Twas in time enough, uncle, if thou wouldst make fewer flourishes,"

retorted a woman's voice; it was nothing but a voice by reason of the voluminous Pathan veil covering the small speaker.

"Curse thee for a misbegotten hound!" bawled Mahb.o.o.b. "Am I to lose the entrance fee I paid Gamu, the Huzoor's orderly, for first interview--when money is so scarce too! Read as it stands, idiot--'tis but an idle tale at best."

The last was an aside to himself as he lay back in his cus.h.i.+ons; for, idle though the tale was undoubtedly, it suited him to be its Prime Minister. The editor laid down his pen hurriedly, and the polished Persian polysyllables began to trip over one another, while their murmurous echo--as if eager to escape the familiar monotony--sped from arch to arch of the long tunnel, which was lit about the middle by side arches on the guards' quarters, and through which the sunlight streamed in a broad band of gold across the red stone causeway.

The attributes of the Almighty having come to an end the reader began on those of Bahadur Shah, Father of Victory, Light of Religion, Polestar and Defender of the Faith----

"Faster, fool, faster," came the fat voice.

The spectacled old man swallowed his breath, as it were, and went on at full gallop through the uprisal and bathing of Majesty, through feelings of pulses and reception of visitors, then slowed down a bit over the recital of dinner; for he was a _gourmet_, and his tongue loved the very sound of dainty dishes.

"May your grave be spat upon!" shouted the Chief Eunuch. "So none were poisoned by it what matters the food? Pa.s.s on----"

"The Most Exalted then said his appointed prayers," gasped the reader.

"The Light-of-the-World then slept his usual sleep. On awakening, the physician Ahsan-Oolah----"

Mahb.o.o.b sat up among his cus.h.i.+ons. "Ahsan-Oolah! he felt the Royal pulse at dawn also----"

"The Most n.o.ble forgets," interrupted a voice with the veiled venom of a partisan in its suavity. "The King--may his enemies die!--took a cooling draught yesterday and requires all the care we can give him."

"The King, Meean-sahib, needs nothing save the prayers of the holy priest, who has piously made over long years of his own life to prolong his Majesty's," retorted Mahb.o.o.b, scowling at the speaker, who wore the Moghul dress, proclaiming him a member of the royal family.

There was no lack of such in the palace-fort, for though Bahadur Shah himself, being more or less of a saint, had contented himself with some sixty children, his ancestors had sometimes run to six hundred.

The Meean-sahib laughed scornfully as he pa.s.sed inward, and muttered that those who went forth with the dog's trot might return with the cat's slink, since the great question had yet to be settled. Mahb.o.o.b's scowl deepened; the very audacity of the interruption rousing a fear lest the king's eldest son, Mirza Moghul, whose partisan the speaker was, might have some secret understanding with Civilization. All the more need for haste.

"Read on, fool! Who told thee to stop?"

"The Princess Farkhoonda Zamani entered by the Delhi gate."

Mahb.o.o.b gave a scornful laugh in his turn. "To visit the Mirza's house, no doubt. Let her come--a pretty fool! Yet she had wiser stay where she hath chosen to live, instead of being princess one day and plain Newasi the next. There are enough women without her in the palace!"

So it seemed, to judge by the stream of female names and t.i.tles belonging to the curtained dhoolies, which had pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the barriers, upon which the editor launched his tongue. But Mahb.o.o.b, as Chief Eunuch, knew the value of such information and cut it short with a sneer.

"If that be all! quick! the pen, and I will sign."

A bystander, also in the Moghul dress, laughed broadly at the well-worn inuendo on the possibilities of curtained dhoolies in intrigue. "Thou art right, Mahb.o.o.b," he said, "G.o.d only knows."

"His own work," chuckled the Keeper of Virtue. "And the Devil made most of the women here. Now pigs! Canst not start? Am I to be kept here all day?"

As the litter went swaying out between the presented arms of the sentries, the white chrysalis of a Pathan veil stepped lamely down into the causeway. "That, seeing there is no news, will be something to amuse the Queen withal," came the sharp voice.

"There may be news enough, when that fat pig returns, to make it hard to amuse thy mistress, Mussamat Hafzan," suggested another bystander.

The chrysalis paused. "My mistress! Nay, sahib! Hafzan is that to herself only. I am for no one save myself. I carry news, and the more the better for my trade. Yet I have not had a real good day for gifts of grat.i.tude from my hearers, since Prince f.u.krud-deen, the heir-apparent, died." There was a reckless cynicism in her voice, and he of the Moghul dress broke in hotly.

"Was poisoned, thou meanest, by----"