Mrs. Elliot was there with the four-months-old baby, to which she always alluded as “my funny little monkey,” thereby greatly shocking Mrs. Hill, whose naughty six-year-old boy was always “an angel,” no matter what he did.
Miss Darcy, having been attacked by Mrs. Crowther, had discovered that true strongmindedness lay in defying that autocratic lady. A row royal had ensued, during which the two Miss Crowthers sat meekly trembling, and confided to one another in whispers that it would have been rather fun to join the others at Mrs. Morton’s.
“Mr. Purslake is sure to be there a great deal,” whispered Milly, and Carrie blushed a very faint pink, and said, “Oh, Milly!” in her plaintive way.
Adela was by no means pleased with her ill-assorted company of guests.
“Really, Helen!” she said angrily, “really I do think Richard is crazy. Fancy asking all this crowd of people here. Clerks’ wives too—like Mrs. da Souza. Why she is as black as my ayah. I never did like Mrs. Crowther, as every one knows, but I declare I think she shows her sense in staying away. It’s a regular Noah’s Ark! I should think all the servants would give notice.”
“We will give them extra wages,” said Helen gaily; “and if they decamp, I will cook, and all the little Da Souzas shall wash up,” and she ran away to dose one of the said Da Souzas with quinine.
Mrs. da Souza was installed in Helen’s own room, which she had already reduced to a condition of incredible disorder. Three of her children were actively engaged in adding to the prevailing confusion, whilst the fourth wailed fretfully upon its mother’s huge and spreading lap.
As Helen entered, sounds of strife met her ears, and she heard Mrs. da Souza exclaim in a high-pitched sing-song:
“Oah Johnnee, take thee comb out of thee butter, and do not let thee babee rub it on his face! Oh, verree nahtee babee!” and there was a shrill scream of passion from the youngest Da Souza.
A mingled spasm of mirth and disgust made Helen’s voice a little shaky, as she proffered the quinine, and asked how the sick child was.
“He is verree ill,” said the mother. Her tears came as readily as her anger. Big drops rolled down her fat dark cheeks and fell upon the little boy’s face.
“He is verree ill. Perhaps he will die.”
“Suppose you were to lay him on the bed? It would be so much cooler. And perhaps the children could be made to keep quiet. The noise must be bad for him, poor little fellow.”
“He shall nott die on thee bed. He shall die in my arms,” declared Mrs. da Souza passionately. Then, with no perceptible change in her expression, she screamed at the children on the floor.
“Johnnee, will you fight when your brother is dying? Chup now. Be silent, all of you. Noisee, nahtee children!” The children screamed in reply, and Helen fled. At the door stood Richard Morton, beckoning.
She went to him quickly, and they stood together for a moment in the deep verandah screened on from the garden and the outside heat by a line of hanging bamboo screens.
“Where is Darcy, Helen?” he asked.
“Dr. Darcy? Oh, Lizzie Monson took him over to her house half an hour ago. Her ayah’s baby is ill, and she wanted him to see it.”
“They must come back. Darcy is in charge here. He had no business—”
Richard had torn a sheet from a note-book as he spoke, and was scribbling half a dozen lines.
“Here, Helen, send this over at once. Add a line to Mrs. Monson. Tell her she must come. Say I said so.”
“Yes, Dick, what is it?”
“The 114th lines are on fire. Jelland went, and has sent back for me. I don’t know what is wrong. Don’t say anything.”
“Of course not.”
Richard hesitated a moment, shook his head, moved as if to go, and then turned back again.
“Helen, you’ve a steady head; get all these women together if you can—at the back of the house. Don’t frighten them. Darcy will be here at once. If anything goes wrong—with the guard—you are all to get across the nullah, and make for Cawnpore. Do you understand?”
“Yes, is there anything else?”
“No. I must go, Helen.”
“Yes, Dick.”
She met his eyes and added:
“It’s all right.”
For a moment his hand fell on her shoulder and rested there. Then without a word he was gone.
Helen watched him out of sight. Then she called a servant, gave him Richard’s note, and one from herself to Mrs. Monson, and told him to make haste with them. When the man had gone, she went back to her room and told Mrs. da Souza that the other side of the house was much cooler, and that they had better move at once. She herself headed the procession, carrying the smeary baby, who had evidently been playing with the butter again, in spite of Johnny’s efforts.
The whole family deposited in the dining room, Helen fetched Miss Darcy and Mrs. Elliot to inspect the sick child, and then drafted them into an adjoining room with the suggestion that it would be a charity to assist Mrs. Hill to fan her husband, whose fever was very high.
She was returning to her own room when Adela emerged from her bedroom, very angry.
“Helen, you’ve never let that Da Souza crowd into my dining-room? I think it is a most unpardonable liberty! I won’t have it!”
“Adie, the child is sick.”
“Well, it can be sick in your room. You offered to have them there instead of being firm with Richard, and now, of course, you don’t like it, and want to change, and I won’t have it! I simply won’t!”
“What is that!” said Helen in a curious low voice.
She was listening intently, but not to Adela.
“I don’t hear anything except that wretched baby crying.”
“Hush! No, Adie, you are to—”
Helen went to the verandah door and opened it. The heat was intense. It came in in a hot gust, and the sleeve of Helen’s dark grey muslin dress seemed to scorch her arm as she leaned out and listened, straining every nerve.
A brain-fever bird was calling from the tall peepul tree in the Monsons’ garden.
“Brain fever! Brain fever! Brain fever!” he shrieked, and each metallic repetition was higher than the last.
The Da Souza baby fretted on a low whining note, and Mr. Hill muttered from the room behind.
Helen had heard something different from any of these sounds. She had heard a short, sharp sound that seemed to rap upon her brain. A little nerve quivered there still, and repeated the signal like an echo.
“Helen, do shut that door!”
Helen drew a long breath. It must have been fancy. She was getting nervous. It would never do for her to imagine things. She took half a step backwards, and then sudden and distinct she heard the sound again—clear beyond any mistaking—a shot—two—three—far away—but clear—dreadfully clear.
Helen Wilmot stepped out on to the verandah and closed the door behind her. She went to the corner which commanded a view of the road and the Monsons’ house.
Imam Bux rose up, salaaming.
“What is it, Imam Bux?” she said, and she saw that his hands were trembling.
“God knows, Miss Sahib. Miss Sahib, what do I know?”
“I heard—shots.”
“It is true.”
“What does it mean?”
“God knows, Miss Sahib.”
Helen caught up a felt hat from one of the verandah chairs, and walked a few steps clear of the house.
A sentry was pacing up and down. She could see the Police picket in the Monsons’ garden, and the guard at their own gate. The men were muttering—looking up and down the road. There was no sign of Dr. Darcy. Out of the distance came a noise of trampling feet.
“It is the guard. They are coming to change the guard,” said Helen to herself, but her heart began to beat, not fast, but very hard, so t
hat she could hear it. It troubled her, because she wanted to listen to that far-off, trampling noise.
Imam Bux went down to the gate, and looked along the road. There was a British officer with the guard, and he spoke to the old servant, and sent him back again.
“The Sahib says it is the new guard. He said, ‘Tell the Miss Sahib to go in. The sun is hot,’” Helen nodded impatiently. She wanted the old man to stop talking. She wanted to listen.
“Helen, you will get a sunstroke,” called Adela. Then she shut the door of her room with a bang, and just as she did so Helen heard a new sound, away on the left past the Monsons’ house. It was a sound like horses galloping, a great many of them, all together; and she remembered that the Cavalry Barracks lay beyond.
Suddenly Imam Bux spoke in a quavering voice.
“Miss Sahib, ai Miss Sahib! This is no guard that comes. There are some who walk, and some who run. A guard does not come thus.”
Helen made a step back, half turning. She saw the guard at the gate stir, and separate into two bodies. She saw the officer glance over his shoulder. There was a revolver in his hand. He ran a few steps towards her, and shouted:
“Go in! go in!”
The words came faintly, and they were scarcely spoken when a shot rang out, and he went down. Helen did not see who fired, but at once there was a confusion amongst all the men, and a tall Sikh sprang out of the ranks, shouting and waving his arms.
Helen’s feet clung to the ground. She could not move. She looked down the road, and saw a long swirl of dust go up into the air. It hung in a dark cloud, and through the cloud she could see fierce faces and waving arms, and a medley of men in red and men in white who ran and shouted as they ran. They cried aloud:
“Join us, brothers, join us!” and half the guard swung forward, and half held back.
Then there was a wild answering cry, “Oh, yes, we will join you! We will show you how we will join you!”
It came from the tall Sikh, and at the word the Sikhs who were with him fired upon the advancing crowd, and pandemonium was loose.
“Miss Sahib! Miss Sahib!” Imam Bux was catching at Helen’s arm, and at his touch a panic seized her, and she turned and ran for the house. She did not see the Police guard charge the Sikhs from the rear. That happened just as she reached the verandah, but before she came to it she heard a great thundering of hoofs, and she saw Lamington’s Cavalry come racing down the road. Without pause or check they went crashing past. At the head of the foremost troop, with lifted head and flying bridle, galloped a riderless horse. With the noise of thunder they came, and with the noise of thunder they went. Involuntarily she hung back—her heart jumped. In that moment Dr. Darcy came out of the Monsons’ house. He had Mrs. Monson by the arm, and was making her run. Helen saw them running, and her own feet would not stir. There were more shots. The running figures fell.
Helen Wilmot drew a quick sobbing breath, and ran, and as she ran she heard a woman’s scream, and a groaning, and then more shouting, and a noise like hell.
The house seemed very dark to Helen. She came in out of the strong light, and for a moment she was blind and giddy, and the dusk seemed full of hands that caught at her dress, and full of the frightened crying of children.
“What is it? Oh, what is it?”
Every one seemed to be calling out together, and the noise from the road grew louder. There were shrieks and oaths, and the clash of arms, and, high and wild, the battle-cries of the Sikhs.
“We must run,” said Helen. Her moment of confusion was over. “We must come at once. To the nullah. Richard said so. Imam Bux, take that child. Yes, Mrs. da Souza, you must. That is right. Adela! Where is Adela!”
“My husband—oh, my husband can’t! It will kill him!” wailed Mrs. Hill.
“He must,” said Helen. “Miss Darcy will help you—Adela! Where are you?”
Mrs. Elliot took her baby out of the ayah’s arms, and opened the door to the verandah. The noise redoubled and she hung back a moment. Then Imam Bux passed through with Johnny da Souza, and she followed him. Mr. Hill tottered after them, his eyes hazy with fever, and his mind confused. He had heard nothing—understood nothing. His ears buzzed with quinine, and he thought he could hear a drum being beaten, but he could not tell the reason for it, nor why his wife should cling to him, and weep. “What a lot o’ women!” he said thickly, and stout Miss Darcy caught his arm, and so they stumbled out into the heat, Mrs. Hill crying all the time, and Jacky highly pleased because he was running races with papa, and mamma, and all the grown-up ladies.
Helen saw them go, and ran to Adela’s room, calling all the time. Something held the door against her, and then gave way with a shriek. She pushed her way in, and Adela, wild with terror, rushed through the room, and crouched behind the bed.
“Adie! Adie!” cried Helen. “My dear, come. It is Helen—only Helen!”
“Helen, they are killing each other! They are shooting at us. Oh, I saw them. Oh, Helen!”
Helen pulled her to her feet, and once they had begun to run, Adela’s panic set her racing, and it was Helen who was put to it to keep up with her.
When they were clear of the house, they had to cross the wide dusty sweep which ran all round it. The dust already raised by all those hastening feet flew up, and hung about them like a mist, only it was dry. It parched their throats, and stung their eyes.
Beyond the sweep a narrow grassy path ran between low rose hedges whose flowers were dead, and whose long thorny trails stretched out across the path, and caught at the women’s dresses as they ran. When they had gone twenty yards the path turned off at right angles, and for another twenty yards there was no cover at all, and they were full in view of the black advancing crowd.
For the Sikhs were all down now. Every man of them dead, with the dead he had killed around him. In the gateway the corpses lay so thick that it was easier for the mutineers to climb the outer wall than to pass the gate which was guarded by the dead. They broke over the wall as a wave breaks—Cavalry, Infantry, men in the English red, with the English rifle in their grip, and hate of the English in their hearts, men in the loose white native dress, high-caste Brahmins, fanatic Mussulmans, bazaar scum, united by a common thirst for blood and loot.
After one glance Helen looked only in front of her. She had to drag Adela along, for panic was passing with exhaustion, and she was thankful that she herself felt neither.
Instead there was an excitement—almost elation—that urged her on, and gave her strength. She found herself noticing everything,—the blazing heat of the sun, the fact that the sky was hazy and showed no blue. She wondered if that were because of the dust of their flight, and a strange and terrible verse came into her mind and stayed there, “And the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon to blood.” Only which of them would live to see the moon?
There seemed no end to the path. There were bright indigo shadows on it, odd crisscross shadows, that changed the colour of the grass, and flickered on the women’s gowns. Suddenly the grass at Helen’s feet was ripped up. A puff of dust rose from it, and her foot felt a little roughness as she passed. Adela screamed, and hung back, and a loud crackling noise came from the direction of the gate. Helen’s mind, working quite clearly and, as it seemed to her, quite slowly, informed her that they were being fired upon, but that they must keep on—because that was what Dick had told them to do.
She dragged Adela forward, and just in front of them she saw some one, Miss Darcy she thought, fall sideways across the path. She made no sound, but she moved a little, and one of the clear indigo shadows became blurred with red. Mrs. da Souza, the fat Eurasian woman, called wildly, and shrilly, upon her Maker, and dropped among the bushes, covering her head, but Helen stepped across the body, and pulled Adela after her by main force.
Helen looked down as they passed and saw the woman’s face. It was Miss Darcy, and she was dead. You must be de
ad if a bullet goes in at your temple, and leaves a strange ragged hole like that. Helen felt no emotion. She was rather glad that Miss Darcy was quite dead, because otherwise she would have been obliged to wait, and try and pick her up, and Miss Darcy was heavy.
It would probably have ended in Adela being shot too, and whatever happened to other people, she must save Adela. Mr. Hill was down now. Not wounded, but too exhausted to go any farther. He lay on his face and sobbed, and his wife sat down beside him, and tried to screen the sun from his head with her small, useless hands. The tears ran down her face all the time, and spoilt little Jacky tugged at her skirts.
Helen caught the child’s hand as she went past, but a yard or two farther on he wrenched away from her, and stumbled back to his mother. Adela noticed nothing, and Helen’s eyes were set on the turn of the path only just ahead of them now. There was cover there—tall clumps of oleander and bamboo. To come into the shade of them was like coming into safety, but as they reached it, and pressed on, Helen heard a scream, and something seemed to cry out in her, with a loud insistent calling.
She pushed Adela behind the bamboos, and said in a strained whisper:
“Not a child. One can’t. It’s no good; go on, Adie—I’ll come,” and she turned and ran back.
But when she came to where Mr. Hill had fallen, he had stopped panting for breath, and Mrs. Hill lay across him with a bullet in her breast, and a dead child clutched in her arms.
Helen crouched between the roses, and stared at them, but none of the three moved, or would move again.
She felt neither grief nor horror. They were dead. Now she could go on, and that clear insistent calling would trouble her no more. She looked towards the house and saw that it was on fire. The mutineers were looting it, but it would not occupy them for long. A bullet sang past her cheek, and another ripped the muslin of her skirt, but she reached the turn of the path again, and pushed her way into the bamboo clump to where she could see Adela Morton’s white dress.
“Come, Adie.”
But Adela was leaning against the bamboo stems half sitting, half kneeling, and her face was white and wet.
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