Read Ebook: The Warden of the Marches by Grier Sydney C Pearse Alfred Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1016 lines and 60714 words, and 21 pages

"Could they refrain from shouting it to the next man who taunts them? No, Ressaldar; tell them to trust me as they have always done hitherto. There will be work to be done before many days, but I cannot set mutinous men to do it."

Badullah Khan went out, meeting Woodworth on the threshold.

"Would you mind coming up to the north-western tower, sir?" asked the adjutant, when he had closed the door. "The enemy seem to be doing something in that direction which I can't quite make out."

"What sort of thing?" asked Colonel Graham, rising.

"I would rather not give an opinion until you have seen what there is to see, sir," was the reply, so unwontedly cautious that the Colonel prepared for a heavy blow. Woodworth followed him up the narrow winding stairs in silence, and pointed to the stretch of desert on the northern side of the town, across which two long strings of men and animals were slowly passing in a westerly direction. The Colonel started, examined the moving objects through his field-glass, and called to his orderly--

"Ask Beltring Sahib to come here at once."

Almost before Beltring, breathless, had mounted the staircase, he was greeted by a question. "Beltring, are there any guns at Nalapur?"

"No, sir. At least, there are two old field-pieces in front of the palace, but that's all."

"Are they in working order?"

"They use them for firing salutes, sir, not for anything else, I believe."

"Still, that shows they are safe to work, and here they are. Where will they mount them, should you say, Woodworth?"

"On the hill, sir. The slope on the far side is comparatively easy for getting them up."

"True, and from the brow there they could knock the place about our ears in a couple of hours. At all costs we must keep them from getting the range to-day. They will have no range-finders, that's one good thing, and if we can secure a night's respite, it'll be a pity if we don't make good use of it. Tell our marksmen to fire at anything they see moving up there. Those guns must not be placed in position before sunset. And then tell all the other officers and volunteers to meet me on the south rampart immediately."

The council of war which assembled on the rampart, sheltered by the south-western tower, was sufficiently informal to make the hair of any stickler for military etiquette stand on end, but its proceedings were absolutely practical. The Colonel, beside whom stood Mr Burgrave, stated the situation briefly.

"You have seen the two guns which the enemy intend to mount on the hill there. Once they get them into position and find our range, we may as well retire into the vaults and wait until we are smoked out, for there is no possible shelter above ground. With our small force it is hopeless to detach a party to sally out and capture the guns in the open--more especially since the enemy hold the town between us and them. Still, they have plenty to do in getting the guns across the canal and dragging them up the hill, and we must make it our business to prevent them from opening fire to-day, and to-night those guns must be taken. I propose to leave the Commissioner in charge of the fort, with ten of his own Sikhs and fifty sowars under Ressaldar Ghulam Rasul. Every civilian who can hold a weapon must also do duty. I shall take a hundred and fifty dismounted sowars and thirty Sikhs, with all the enrolled volunteers, and make a dash for the hill under cover of darkness. If we succeed, we shall have averted a great danger; if we fail, the fort will be no worse off than if we had hung about and done nothing. I am confident that the Commissioner will fight to the end, and not allow himself to be tempted by any offer of terms."

"Know the beggars too well," said Mr Burgrave laconically.

"That's the main scheme; now for details. To reach the hill, the canal must be crossed in any case. The most obvious plan would undoubtedly be for the force to rendezvous silently in the shadow of the west curtain, traverse the irrigated land, and restore the bridge at the foot of the hill sufficiently to cross by it. But the enemy could sweep the whole route from their positions both in the town and on the hill, and they will be very much on the alert to-night. My idea is to cross the canal here from the water-gate, and march the first part of the distance along the bank, so as to come upon the enemy from the side he won't expect us. He knows we have neither boat nor bridge, and the water is still deep enough along the wall to be impassable to any but good swimmers."

"Then how do you propose to cross?" asked Mr Burgrave.

"There I must invite suggestions. We have no time for building boats or bridges, and the water-gate offers no facilities for it either. A raft, possibly. What do you think, Runcorn?"

"A raft supported on inflated skins, sir?" asked the engineer officer. "That might be practicable, but it would have to be very small, for the passage to the gate is so narrow that all the materials must be taken to the water's edge separately and put together there. There is no standing-ground of any sort but the wretched shaky steps that the water-carriers use, so that we can't well lower things from the wall."

"And the time spent in ferrying the force over would be interminable, not to mention the risk of discovery by the enemy," said Colonel Graham.

His subordinates looked at one another. Various suggestions had been hazarded and rejected, when a hesitating voice made itself heard. The speaker was Mr Hardy, who had joined the group a few minutes earlier, with a message to the Colonel from one of the wounded officers in the hospital.

"In my Oxford days," he said, "I remember a pleasant walk through the meadows--" His hearers gasped. Why should these peaceful recollections be obtruded at such a moment? "There was one point at which the path crossed a considerable stream, and a punt that ran on wires was placed there. I'm afraid I am not very intelligible," he smiled nervously. "I can't describe the mechanism in technical language, but the punt was fastened to one wire, and the other was free and moved on pulleys, so that you could pull yourself across, or draw the punt towards you if it happened to be at the opposite bank."

"Padri," said Colonel Graham, "it's clear that you are an unsuspected mechanical genius. This is the very thing we want, though we must use rope instead of wire."

"But we have even got that, sir," said Runcorn eagerly. "Timson was boasting that he had saved all the stores of his department--miles of telegraph wire amongst them. Now he'll have to disgorge."

"Then will you set about the construction of the ferry, Runcorn? You can't begin work on the spot until night, but you can get your materials ready. Requisition anything you want, of course."

"May we make a suggestion, sir?" said Fitz Anstruther, coming forward with Winlock as the council broke up. Signals of intelligence had been passing between the two for some time, and they had held a whispered consultation while the ferry was being discussed.

"Why, what plot have you on hand?"

"It sounds feasible," said the Colonel slowly; "but how do you propose to cross the canal?"

"We don't mean to cross it in going, sir. Anstruther says we can clamber along the base of this wall from the water-gate round the south-western tower, so as to get on to dry land under the west curtain."

"I know it's possible, sir," said Fitz eagerly. "I've done it more than once when the canal was low, and it'll be easier now that the bricks are so much washed away. And of course we shall be very careful in crossing the irrigated land--all of us in khaki, you see, and taking advantage of every bit of cover--and unless we run right into one of the enemy's outposts, I don't see how they are to spot us. And think of the benefit it will be to have their attention distracted from your movement!"

"You realise that you are taking your lives in your hands? You will probably have to swim the canal higher up to join us, and, after all, we may not be able to wait for you. Your men will be volunteers, of course? They must understand that it's a desperate business."

"Sahib, there is a man under the wall on the east side."

"How did he come there?" demanded Colonel Graham angrily. "What are the sentries doing?"

"The night is so dark, sahib, that he crept up unnoticed. He is the holy mullah Aziz-ud-Din, and desires speech with your honour."

"The Amir's mullah? You are sure of it?"

"I know his voice, sahib. He is holding his hands on high, to show that he has no weapons."

"I suppose we may as well see what he has to say," said the Colonel to Mr Burgrave, with whom he had been making final arrangements, and the two men climbed the steps to the east rampart. Once there, and looking over into the darkness, it was some little time before their eyes could distinguish the dim figure at the foot of the wall.

"Peace!" said Colonel Graham.

"It is peace, sahib. I bear the words of the Amir Ashraf Ali Khan. He says, 'It is now out of my power to save the lives of the sahibs, and I will not deceive them, knowing that a warrior's death amid the ruins of their fortress will please them better than to fall into the hands of my thrice-accursed nephew, who has stolen the hearts of my soldiers from me. But this I can do. The houses next to the canal on this side of the fort are held by my own bodyguard, faithful men who have eaten of my salt for many years, and I have there six swift camels hidden. Let the Memsahibs be entrusted to me, especially those of the household of my beloved friend N?th Sahib, and I will send them at once to Nalapur, where they shall be in sanctuary in my own palace, and I will swear--I who kept my covenant with the Sarkar until the Sarkar broke it--that death shall befall me before any harm touches them.'"

"Why is this message sent to-night?" asked Colonel Graham.

"Because Bahram Khan is preparing a great destruction, sahib, and the heart of Ashraf Ali Khan bleeds to think that the houses of his friends Sinj?j K?lin Sahib and N?th Sahib should both be blotted out in one day."

"Carry my thanks and those of the Commissioner Sahib to Ashraf Ali Khan, but tell him that the Memsahibs will remain with us. Their presence would only place him in greater danger, and he would not be able to protect them. But we can. They will not fall into the hands of Bahram Khan."

"It is well, sahib." The faint blur which represented the messenger melted into the surrounding blackness, and Colonel Graham turned to his companion.

"It will be your business to see to that, if the enemy break in. Haycraft comes with me. We must leave Flora in your charge. Don't let her fall into their hands, any more than Miss North."

"I promise," said Mr Burgrave, and their hands met in the darkness.

"I should prefer to say nothing unless the necessity arises."

"I will go and talk to her for a little while. I have scarcely seen her all day."

Mr Burgrave's tone was constrained. It seemed to him almost impossible to meet Mabel at this crisis, and abstain from any allusion to the terrible duty which had just been laid upon him. He was not an imaginative man, and no forecast of the scene burned itself into his brain, as would have been the case with some people, but the oppression of anticipation was heavy upon him. For him the dull horror in his mind overshadowed everything, and it was with a shock that he found Mabel to be in one of her most vivacious and aggressive moods. She was walking up and down the verandah outside her room as if for a wager, turning at each end of the course with a swish of draperies which sounded like an angry breeze, and she hailed his arrival with something like enthusiasm, simply because he was some one to talk to.

"Flora is crying on Fred's--I mean Mr Haycraft's--shoulder somewhere," she said; "and Mrs Hardy and Georgia are having a prayer-meeting with the native Christians. They wanted me to come too; but I don't feel as if I could be quiet, and I shouldn't understand, either. What is going to happen, really?"

"The Colonel proposes to make a sortie and capture the two guns which the enemy have brought up. There is, I trust, every prospect of his succeeding."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet