MmmmMmMmmm ^TT^^^^^H ;■ / ? JBB r 1 ■ v^ ' so -^•UBRARYQc. ^lUBRARYOc. ^•I/OJIIVD-JO'^ ^OFCAUFOR^ ^OFCAUFO/?^ .^WEUNIVtR5•/A ^^OJIWDJO^ '^XiUONVSOl^ ,5MEUNIVERy//, ^ '>&AilVii8llli'^ "^(^xavaani en ■ ZX3 "» SO -^tUBRARYOc. ^l-UBRARYQr^ «^^VEUNIVfRiy^ ^IDSANCEl >&AHvaan-# v^AHvaaniS^ <<5130NVSO# %aiMNii ^lUBKARYOr (-3 <^OFCAIIFO% ^tUBKARYQ<;^ ^OFCAIIFOI?^ ^^10SAKCEI% o Awnmv' ^lOSANCEltr^ o ^/5a3MNn-3WV^ ^t-UBRARY-Oc^ ^HIBRAflVQr ^((/OdllVDJO^ ^(!/0JllV3JO^ ^\\EUNIVERSyA ^lOSAVCElfj-^ o ^OFfAllFO% ^0FCAIIF0% "^/siaAiNumv^ ^4 VI PREFACE. of ten, reply, " God knows! He sent a Breath into the World." Prom this to a Spirit moving on the face of the Waters is not far. For the rest I have tried to give a photograph — that is, a picture in which the differentia- tion caused by color is left out — of a time which neither the fair race or the dark race is ever likely to quite for- get or forgive. That they may come nearer to the latter is the object with which this book has been written. F. A. Steel. ,^^^ri<^^^k^>t<- ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS •The CONTENTS. BOOK I. Thistledown and Gossamer, chapter page I. Going ! Going ! Gone ! , i II. Home, Sweet Home, 14 III. The Great Gulf Fixed, ...... 27 IV. Tape and Sealing-wax, 40 V. Bravo ! 52 VI. The Gift of Many Faces, 67 BOOK II. The Blowing of the Bubble. I. In the Palace, 84 II. In the City, gg III.. On the Ridge, , . ' 114 IV. In the Village, 130 V. In the Residency, 147 VI. The Yellow Fakir, 164 VII, The Word Went Forth, 179 BOOK III. From Dusk to Dawn. I. Night, 192 II. Dawn, . . , . . . . . 208 III. Daylight, . . . = 222 IV. Noon, 236 V. Sunset, 248 VI. Dusk, 262 vii via CONTENTS. BOOK IV. "Such Stuff as Dreams are Made of." chapter page I. The Death-Pledge 275 II. Peace ! Peace ! 290 III. The Challenge, 306 IV. Bugles and Fifes, . 322 V. The Drum Ecclesiastic, 338 VI. Vox Humana, . . , 354 BOOK V. " There Arose a Man." I. Forward ! 370 II. Bits, Bridles, Spurs, 385 III. The Beginning of the End, 403 IV. At Last, 419 V. Through the Walls, . 434 VI. Rewards and Punishments, ..... 449 BOOK VI. Appendix a, ......... . 470 Appendix b, 474 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. BOOK I. THISTLEDOWN AND GOSSAMER. CHAPTER I. going! going! gone! " Going! Going! Gone! " The Western phrase echoed over the Eastern scene without a trace of doubt in its cahn assumption of finahty. It was followed by a pause, during which, despite the crowd thronging the wide plain, the only recognizable sound was the vexed yawning purr of a tiger impatient for its prey. It shuddered through' the sunshine, strangely out of keeping with the multitude of men gathered to- gether in silent security; but on that March evening of the year 1856, when the long shadows of the surrounding trees had begun to invade the sunlit levels of grass by the river, at Lucknow, the lately deposed King of Gude's menagerie was being auctioned. It had followed all his other property to the hammer, and a perfect Noah's Ark of wild beasts was waiting doubtfully for a change of masters. " Going! Going! Gone! " Those three cabalistic words, shibboleth of a whole hemisphere's greed of gain, had just transferred the proprietary rights in an old tusker elephant for the sum of eighteenpence. It is not a large price to pay for a leviathan, even if he be lame, as this one was. Yet the 2 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. new owner looked at his purchase distastefully, and even the auctioneer sought support in a gulp of brandy and water. " Fetch up them poUies, Tom," he said in a dejected whisper to a soldier, who, with others of the fatigue party on duty, was trying to hustle refractory lots into position. " They'll be a change after elephants — go ofif lighter like. Then there's some of them La Alartiniery boys comin' down again as ran up the fightin' rams this mornin'. Wonder wot the 'ead master said! But boys is allowed birds, and Lord knows we want to be a bit brisker than we 'ave bin with giij-putti. But there! it's slave-drivin' to screw bids for beasts as eats hunder- weights out of poor devils as 'aven't enough for them- selves, or a notion of business as business." He shook his head resentfully yet compassionately over the impassive dark faces around. He spoke as an auctioneer; yet he gave expression to a very common feeling which in the early fifties, when the commercial instincts of the West met the uncommercial ones of the East in open market for the first time, sharpened the an- tagonism of race immensely; that inevitable antagonism when the creed of one people is that Time is Money, of the other that Time is Naught. From either standpoint, however, the auction going on down by the river Goomtee was confusing; even to those who, knowing the causes which had led up to it — the unmentionable atrocities, the crass incapacity on the one hand, the unsanctioned treaties and craze for civilization on the other — were conscious of a distinct flavor of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Deluge all combined, as they watched the just and yet unjust retribution going on. But such specta- tors were few, even in the outer fringe of English onlook- ers pausing in their evening drive or ride to gratify their curiosity. The long reports and replies regarding the annexation of Oude which filled the office boxes of the elect were unknowm to them, so they took the afifair as they found it. The King, for some reason satisfactory to the authorities, had been exiled, majesty being thus vested in the representatives of the annexing race: that GOING! GOING! GONE! 3 is, in themselves. A position which conies naturally to most Englishmen. To the silent crowds closing round the auctioneer's table the affair was simple also. The King, for some unsatisfactory reason, had been ousted from his own. His goods and chattels were being sold. The valuable ones had been knocked down, for a mere song — just to keep up the farce of sale — to the Huzoors. The rubbish — lame elephants and such like — was being sold to them ; more or less agamst their will, since who could forbear bidding sixpence for a whole leviathan? That this was in a measure inevitable, that these new-come sahibs were bound to supply their wants cheaply when a whole posse of carriages and horses, cattle and furniture was thrown on an otherwise supplied market, did not, of course, occur to those who watched the hammer fall to that strange new cry of the strange new master. When does such phil- osophy occur to crowds? So when the waning light closed each day's sale and the people drifted back city- ward over the boat-bridge they w-ere no longer silent. They had tales to tell of how much the barouche and pair, or the Arab charger, had cost the King when he bought it. But then Wajeed Ali, with all his faults, had never been a bargainer. He had spent his revenues right royally, thus giving ease to many. So one could tell of a purse of gold flung at 'a beggar, another a life pension granted to a tailor for inventing a new way of sewing spangles to a waistcoat; for there had been no lack of the insensate munificence in which lies the Oriental test of royalty, about the King of Oude's reign. Despite this talk, however, the talkers returned day after day to watch the auction; and on this, the last one, the grassy plain down by the Goomtee was peaceful and silent as ever save for the occasional cry of an affrighted hungry beast. The sun sent golden gleams over the short turf worn to dustiness by crowding feet, and the long curves of the river, losing themselves on either side among green fields and mango trees, shone like a bur- nished shield. On the opposite bank, its minarets show- ing fragile as cut paper against the sky, rose the Chutter Munzil — the deposed King's favorite palace. Behind it. 4 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. above the belt of trees dividing the high Residency gar- dens from the maze of houses and hovels still occupied by the hangers-on to the late Court, the English flag drooped lazily in the calm floods of yellow light. For the rest, were dense dark groves following the glistening- curve of the river, and gardens gravely gay in pillars of white chiuii-bacli creeper and cypress, long prim lines of latticed walls, and hedges of scarlet hibiscus. Here and there above the trees, the dome of a mosque or the mina- ret of a mausoleum told that the town of Lucknow, scat- tered yet coherent, lay among the groves. The most profligate town in India which by one stroke of an Eng- lish pen had just been deprived of the raison-d'etre of its profligacy, and been bidden to live as best it could in cleanly, courtless poverty. So, already, there were thousands of workmen in it, innocent enough panderers in the past to luxurious vice, who were feeling the pinch of hunger from lack of employment; and there were those past employers also, deprived now of pensions and offices, with a bank- rupt future before them. But Lucknow had a keener grievance than these in the new tax on opium, the drug which helps men to bear hunger and bankruptcy; so, as the auctioneer said, it was not a place in which to expect brisk bidding for wild beasts with large appetites. But the parrots roused a faint interest, and the crowd laughed suddenly at the fluttering screams of a red and blue macaw, as it was tossed from hand to hand, on its way to the surprised and reluctant purchaser who had bid a farthing for it out of sheer idleness. "Another mouth to feed, Shumshu! " jeered a fellow butcher, as he literally flung the bird at a neighbor's head. " Rather he than I," laughed the recipient, con- tinuing the fling. " Ari! Shumshu, take thy baby. Well caught, brother! but what will thy house say? " " That I have made a fat bargain," retorted the big, coarse owner coolly, as he wrung the bird's neck, and twirled it, a quivering tuft of bright feathers and choking cries, above his head, " Thou'lt buy no meat at a farthing a pound, even from my shop, I'll swear, and this bird weighs two, and is delicate as chicken," GOIXG ! GOING! GONE! 5 The laugh which answered the sally held a faint scream, not wholly genuine in its ring. It came from the ^C\g^ of the crowd, where two English riders had paused to see what the fun was ahout. " Cruel devils, aren't they, Allie? " said one, a tall, fair man whose good looks were at once made and marred by heaviness of feature. "Why! you've turned pale despite the rouge ! " His tone was full of not over-re- spectful raillery; his bold, bloodshot eyes met his com- panion's innocent looking ones with careless admiration. " Don't be a fool, Erlton," she replied promptly; and the even, somewhat hard pitch of her voice did not match the extreme softness of her small, childish face. " You know I don't rouge; or you ought to. And it was horrible, in its way." " Only what your ladyship's cook does to your lady- ship's fowls," retorted Alajor Erlton. " You don't see it done, that's all the difiference. It is a cruel world, Mrs. Gissing, the sex is the crudest thing in it, and you, as I'm always telling you, are the crudest of your sex." His manner w-as detestable, but little Mrs. Gissing laughed again. She had not a fine taste in such matters ; perhaps because she had no taste for them at all. So, in the middle of the laugh, her attention shifted to the big white cockatoo which formed the next lot. It had a most rumpled and dejected appearance as it tried to keep its balance on the ring wdiich the soldier assistant swung backward and forward boisterously. "Do look at that ridiculous bird!" she exclaimed, " Did you ever see any creature look so foolish?" It did, undoubtedly, with its wrinkled gray eyelids closed in agonized effort, its clattering gray beak bobbing rhythmically toward its scaly gray legs. It roused the auctioneer from his depression into beginning in grand style. " Now, then, gentlemen! This is a real treat, indeed! A cockatoo, old as Methusalem and twice as wise. It speaks, I'll be bound. Says 'is prayers — look at 'im gemyflexing! and maybe he swears a bit like the rest of us. Any gentleman bid a rupee! — a eight annas? — a four annas?* Come, gentlemen! " " One anna," called INTrs. Gissing, wath a coquettish 6 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. nod to the big Major, and a loud aside: " Cruel I may be to you, sir, but I'll give that to save the poor brute from having its neck wrung." " Two annas ! " There was a stress of eagerness in the new voice which made many in the crowd look whence it came. The speaker was a lean old man wearing a faded green turban, who had edged himself close to the auction- eer's table and stood with upturned eyes watching the bird anxiously. He had the face of an enthusiast, keen, remorseless, despite its look of ascetic patience. "Three annas!" Alice Gissing's advance came with another nod at her big admirer. " Four annas! " The reply was quick as an echo. A vexed surprise showed on the pretty babyish face. " What an impertinent wretch ! Eight annas — do you hear? — eight annas! " The auctioneer bowed efifusively. " Eight annas bid for a cockatoo as says " he paused cautiously, for the bidding was brisk enough without exaggeration. "Eight annas once — twace — Going! going " " One rupee! " Mrs. Gissing gave a petulant jag to her rein. " Oh! come away, Erlton, my charity doesn't run to rupees." But her companion's face, never a very amiable one, had darkened with temper, " D n the impudent devil," he muttered savagely, before raising his voice ^" call: " Two rupees! " " Five! " There was no hesitation still; only an almost clamorous anxiety in the worn old voice. " Ten! " Major Erlton's had lost its first heat, and set- tled into a dull decision which made the auctioneer turn to him, hammer in hand. Yet the echo was not wanting. "Fifteen!" The Englishman's horse backed as if its master's hand lay heavy on the bit. There was a pause, during which that shuddering cough of the hungry tiger quavered through the calm flood of sunshine, in which the crowd stood silently, patiently. " Fifteen rupees," began the auctioneer reluctantly, his sympathies outraged, " Fifteen once, twice " GOING! GOING! GONE! 7 Then Alice Gissing laughed. The woman's laugh of derision which is responsible for so much. " Tifty rupees," said Major Erlton at once. The old man in the green turban turned swiftly ; turned for the first time to look at his adversary, and in his face was intolerant hatred mingled with self-pity; the look of one who, knowing that he has justice on his side, knows also that he is defeated. " Thank you, sir," caught up the auctioneer. " Fifty once, twice, thrice! Hand the bird over, Tom. Put it down, sir, I suppose, with the other things? " Major Erlton nodded sulkily. He was already be- ginning to wonder why he had bought the brute. Mean- while Tom, still swinging the cockatoo derisively, had jumped from the table into the crowd round it as if the sea of heads was non-existent; being justified of his rash- ness by its prompt yielding of foothold as he elbowed his way outward, shouting for room good-naturedly, and answered by swift smiles and swifter obedience. Yet both were curiously silent; so that Mrs. Gissing's voice, wondering what on earth Herbert was going to do with the creature now that he had bought it, was distinctly audible. " Give it to you, of course," he replied moodily. " You can wring its neck if you choose, Allie. You are cruel enough for that, I dare say." The thought of the fifty rupees wasted was rankling fiercely; fifty rupees! when he would be hard put to it for a penny if he didn't pull ofif the next race. Fifty rupees! because a woman laughed ! But Mrs. Gissing was laughing again. " I shan't do anything of the kind. I shall give it to your wife, Major Erlton. Em sure she must be dull all alone; and then she loves prayers ! " the absolute effrontery of the speech was toned down by her indifferent expression. " Here, sergeant! " she went on, " hold the bird up a bit higher, please. I want to see if it is w^orth all that money. Gracious ! what a hideous brute ! " It was, in truth; save for the large gold-circled eyes, like strange gems, which opened suddenly as the swing- ing ceased. They seemed to look at the dainty little 8 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. figure taking it in; and then, in an instant, the dejected feathers were atluff, the wings outspread, the flame- colored crest, unseen before, raised Uke a fiery flag as the bird gave an ear-piercing scream. '' Decn! Decn! Futtch MohwmiicdJ' (For the Faith! For the Faith! Victory to Mohammed.) The war cry of the fiercest of all faiths was unmistak- able; the first two syllables cutting the air, keen as a knife, the last with the blare as of a trurnpet in them. And following close on their heels came an indescribable sound, like the answering vibration of a church to the last deep organ-note. It was a faint murmur from the crowd till then so silent. " D n the bird! Hold it back, man! Loosen the curb, Allie, for God's sake, or the brute will be over with you ! " Herbert Erlton's voice was sharp with anxiety as he reined his own horse savagely out of the way of his com- panion's, which, frightened at the unexpected commotion, was rearing badly. "All right," she called; there was a little more color on her child-like face, a firmer set of her smiling mouth: that was all. But the hunting crop she carried fell in one savage cut after another on the startled horse's quarters. It plunged madly, only to meet the bit and a dig of the spur. So, after two or three unavailing attempts to un- seat her, it stood still with pricked ears and protesting snorts. " Well sat, Allie! By George, you can ride! I do Hke to see pluck in a woman; especially in a pretty one." The Major's temper and his fears had vanished alike in his admiration. Mrs. Gissing looked at him curiously. " Did you think I was a coward? " she asked lightly; and then she laughed. " I'm not so bad as all that. But look! There is your wife coming along in the new vic- toria — it's an awfully stylish turn-out, Herbert; I wish Gissing w^ould give me one like it. I suppose she has been to church. It's Lent or something, isn't it? Any- how, she can take that screaming beast home." " You're not " began the Major, but Mrs. Gissing had already ridden up to the carriage, making it impossi- GOliXG! GOING! GONE! 9 ble for the solitary occupant to avoid giving the order to stop. She was rather a pale woman, who leaned listlessly among the cushions. " Good evening, Mrs. Erlton," said the little lady, " been, as you see, for a ride. But we were thinking of you and hoping you would pray for us in church." Kate Erlton"s eyebrows went up, as they had a trick of doing when she was scornful. " I am only on my way thither as yet," she repHed; " so that now I am aware of your wishes I can attend to them." The obvious implication roused the aggressor to greater recklessness. "Thanks! but we really deserve something, for we have been buying a parrot for you. Erlton paid a whole fifty rupees for it because it said its prayers and he thought you would like it! " " That was very kind of Major Erlton," — there w^as a fine irony in the title, — " but, as he knows, I'm not fond of things with gay feathers and loud voices." The man, listening, moved his feet restlessly in his stirrups. It was too bad of Allie to provoke these spar- ring matches. Foolish, too, since Kate's tongue was sharp w^hen she chose to rouse herself. None sharper, in his opinion. " If you don't want the bird," he interrupted shortly, " tell the groom to wTing its neck;." Mrs. Gissing looked at him, her reproachful blue eyes perfect wells of simplicity. " Wring its neck! How can you, when you paid all that money to save it from being killed! That is the real story, Mrs. Erlton; it is indeed " He interrupted his wife's quick glance of interest im- patiently. " The main point being that I had, or shall have to pay fifty rupees — which I must get. So I must be ofif to the racecourse if I don't w^ant to be posted. I ought to have been there a quarter of an hour ago; should have been but for that confounded bird. Are you coming, Mrs. Gissing, or not? " " Now^ Erlton! " she replied. " don't be stupid. As if he didn't know, Mrs. Erlton, that I am every bit as much interested as he is in the match wath that trainer man! — what's his name, Erlton? Grevman — isn't it? I have lo ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. endless gloves on it, sir, so of course I'm coming to see fair play." Major Erlton shot a rapid glance at her, as if to see what she really meant; then muttered something angrily about chafif as, with a dig of his heels, he swung his horse round to the side of hers. Kate Erlton watched their figures disappear behind the trees, then turned indifferently to the groom who was waiting for orders with the cockatoo. But she started visibly in finding herself face to face with a semi-circle of spectators which had gathered about the figure of an old man in a faded green turban who stood close beside the groom, and who, seeing her turn, salaamed, and with clasped hands began an appeal of some sort. So much she gathered from his bright eyes, his tone ; but no more, and all unconsciously she drew back to the furthest cor- ner of the carriage, as if to escape from what she did not understand, and therefore did not like. That, indeed, was her attitude toward all things native. Yet at times, as now, she felt a dim regret at her own ignorance. What did he want? What were they thinking of, those dark, incomprehensible faces closing closer and closer round her? What could they be thinking of, uncivil- ized, heathen, as they were? tied to hateful, horrible be- liefs and customs, unmentionable thoughts; so the innate repulsion of the alien overpowered her dim desire to be kind. " Drive on! " she called in her clear, soft voice, " drive on to the church." The grooms, new taken from royal employ, — for the victoria had been one of the spoils of the auction, — began their arrogant shouting to the crowd; the coachman, treating it also in royal fashion, cut at his horses regard- less of their plunging. So after an instant's scurry and flurry, a space was cleared, and the carriage rolled ofT. The old man, left standing alone, looked after it silently for a moment, then flung his arms skyward. "O God, reward them! reward them to the uttermost!" The appeal, however, seemed too indefinite for solace, and he turned for closer sympathy to the crowd. " The bird is mine, brothers ! I lent it to the King, to teach his GOING! GOING! GONE! II the Cry-of-Faith that 1 had taught it. But the Huzoors would not Hsten, or they would not understand. It was a little thing to them! So I brought all I had, thinking to buy mine own again. But yonder hell-doomed infidel hath it for nothing — for he paid nothing; and here — here is my money! " He drew a little bag from his breast and held it up with shaking hand. "For nothing!" echoed the crowd, seizing on what interested it most. " For sure he paid nothing." The murmur, spreading from man to man in doubt, wonder, assertion, was interrupted by a voice with the re- sonance and calm in it of one accustomed to listeners. " Xay! not for nothing. Have patience. The bird may yet give the Great Cry in the house of the thief. I, Ahmed-oolah, the dust of the feet of the Most High, say it. Have patience. God settles the accounts of men." " It is the Moulvie," whispered some, as the gaunt, hollow-eyed speaker moved out of the crow'd, a good head and shoulders taller than most there. " The Moulvie from Fyzabad. He preaches in the big ]\Iosque to-night, and half the city goes to hear him." The whispering voices formed a background to the recurring cry of the auctioneer, "Going! Going! Gone!" as lot after lot fell to the hammer, while the crowd listened to both, or drifted cityward with the njemory of them linger- ing insistently. "Going! Going! Gone!" \Miat was going? Every- thing, if tales were true; and there were so many tales nowadays. Of news flashed faster by wires than any, even the gods themselves, could flash it; of carriages, fire-fed, bringing God knows what grain from God knows where! Could a body eat of it and not be polluted? Could the children read the school books and not be apostate? Burning questions these, not to be answered lightly. And as the people, drifting homeward in the sunset, asked them, other sounds assailed their ears. The long-drawn chant of the call to prayer from the ]\Ioham.medan mosques, the clashing of gongs from the Hindoo temples, the solitary clang of the Christian church bell. Diverse, yet similar in this, that each called Life to face Death, not as an end, but as a beginning; called 12 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. with more insistence than usual in the church, where a special missionary service was being held, at which a well-known worker in the vineyard was to give an ad- dress on the duty of a faithful soldier of Christ in a heathen land. With greater authority in the mosque also, where the Moulvie was to lay down the law for each sol- dier of the faith in an age of unbelief and change. Only in the Hindoo temples the circling lights flickered as ever, and there was neither waxing nor waning of wor- ship as mortality drifted in, and drifted out, hiding the rude stone symbol of regeneration with their chaplets of flowers; the symbol of Life-in-Death, of Death-in-Life. The cult of the Inevitable. There was no light in these dark shrines, save the circling cresset; none, save the dim reflection of dusk from white marble, in the mosque where the Moulvie's sonorous voice sent the broad Arabic vowels rebounding from dome to dome. But in the church there was a blaze of lamps, and the soldierly figure at the reading desk showed clear to the men and w'omen listening leisurely in the cushioned pews. Yet the words were stirring enough ; there was no lack of directness in them. Kate Erlton, resting her chin on her hand, kept her eyes on the speaker closely as his voice rose in a final con- fession of the faith that was in him. " I conceive it is ever the hope and aim of a true Christian that his Lord should make him the happy instrument of rescuing his neighbor from eternal damna- tion. In this belief I find it my duty to be instant in sea- son and out of season, speaking to all, sepoys as well as civilians, making no distinction of persons or place, since with the Lord there are no such distinctions. In the temporal matters I act under the orders of my earthly superior, but in spiritual matters I own no allegiance save to Christ. So, in trying to convert my sepoys, I act as a Christian soldier under Christ, and thus, by keep- ing the temporal and spiritual capacities in which I have to act clearly under their respective heads, I render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, to God the things that are God's."* * From Colonel W. Wheler's defens?. GO/.VG! GOING! GONE! 13 There was a little rustle of satisfaction and relief from the pews, the hymn closing the service went with a swing, and the congregation, trooping out into the scented even- ing air, fell to admiring the address. " And he looked so handsome and soldierly, didn't he? " said one voice with a cadence of sheer comfortable- ness in it as the owner nestled back in the barouche. " Quite charming! " assented another. " And to think of a man like that, brave as a lion, submitting to be hustled off his own parade ground because his sepoys objected to his preaching. It is an example to us all! " " I wouldn't give much for the discipline of his regi- ment," began Kate Erlton impulsively, then paused, certain of her hearers, uncertain of herself; for she was of those women who use religion chiefly as an anodyne for the heartache, leaving her intellect to take care of itself. With the result that it revenged itself, as now, by sudden flashes of reason which left her helpless before her own comm.on sense. " ]\Iy dear Mrs. Erlton! " came a shocked coo, " disci- pline or no discipline, we are surely bound to fight the good Gracious heavens! what is that?" It was the cockatoo. Roused from a doze by the movement of Kate's carriage toward the church-door, it had dashed at once into the war-cry — '' Dccn! Dccn! FnttehM ohammcd ! " The appositeness of the interruption, however, was quite lost on the ladies, who were too ignorant to recog- nize it; so their alarm ended in a laugh, and the sug- gestion that the bird would be a noisy pet. Thus, with worldly gossip coming to fill the widen- ing spaces in their complacent piety, they drove home- ward together where the curving river shimmered faintly in the dark, or through scented gardens where the orange-blossom showed as faintly among the leaves, like star-dust on a dark sky. But Kate Erlton drove alone, as she generally did. She was one of those women whose refinement stands in their wav: who are gourmets of life, failing to see that the very fastidiousness of their palate argues a keener delight in its pleasures than that of those who take them more 14 ON FHE FACE OF THE WATERS. simply, perhaps more coarsely. And as she drove, her mind diverted listlessly to the semicircle of dark faces she had left unanswered. What had they wanted? Nothing worth hearing, no doubt! Nothing was worth much in this weary land of exile where the heart-hunger for one little face and voice gnawed at your vitality day and night. For Kate Erlton set down all her discontent to the fact that she was separated from her boy. Yet she had sent him home of her own free will to keep him from growing up in the least like his father. And she had stayed w-ith that father simply to keep him within the pale of respecta- bility for the boy's sake. That was what she told herself. She allowed nothing for her own disappointment ; nothing for the keen craving for sentiment which lay behind her refinement. All she asked from fate was that the future might be no worse than the past; so that she could keep up the fiction to the end. And as she drove, a sudden sound made her start, for — soldier's wife though she was — the report of a rifle always set her heart a-beating. Then from the darkness came a long-drawn howl; for over on the other side of the river they were beginning to shoot down the hungry beasts which all through the long sunny day had found no master. The barter of their lives was complete. The last " Going! Going! Gone! " had come, and they had passed to settle the account elsewhere. So, amid this dropping fire of kindly meant destruction, the night fell soft and warm over the shimmering river and the scented gardens with the town hidden in their midst. CHAPTER 11. HOME, SWEET HOMe! " You sent for me. I believe. Mrs. Erlton." " Yes. Mr. Greyman, T sent for you." Both voices came reluctantly into the persistent cooing of doves which filled the room, for the birds were HOME, SWEET HOME! iS perched among a coral begonia overhanging the ver- anda. But the man had so far the best of it in the diffi- cult interview which was evidently beginning, in that he stood with his back to the French window through which he had just entered; his face, therefore, was in shadow. Hers, as she paused, arrested by surprise, faced the light. For Kate Erlton, when she sent for James Greyman in the hopes of bribing him to silence re- garding the match which had been run the evening before between his horse and her husband's, had not ex- pected to see a gentleman in the person of an ex-jockey, trainer, and general hanger-on to the late King's stables. The diamonds with which she had meant to purchase honor lay on the table, but this man would not take diamonds. What would he take? She scanned his face anxiously, yet with a certain relief in her disappointment; for the clean-shaven contours w^ere line, if a trifle stern; and the mouth, barely hidden by a slight mustache, was thin-lipped, well cut. " Yes! I sent for you," she continued — and the even confidence of her own voice surprised her. " I meant to ask how much you would want to keep this miserable business quiet; but now " She paused, and her hand, which had been resting on the center table, shifted its position to push aside the jewel-case; as if that were sufficient explanation. " But now?" he echoed formally, though his eyes fol- lowed the action. She raised hers to his, looking him full in the face. They were beautiful eyes, and their cold gray blue, with the northern glint of steel in it, gave James Greyman an odd thrill. He had not looked into eyes like these for many a long year. Not since, in a room just like this one, homely and English in every twist and turn of foreign flowers and furniture, he had ruined his life for a pair of eyes, as coldly pure as these, to look at. He did not mean to do it again. " But now I can only ask you to be kind, and gener- ous, Mr. Greyman! I want you to save my husband from the disgrace your claim must bring — if you press it." Once more the monotonous cooing from the outside filled the darkness and the light of the large, lofty room. 1 6 ON THE FACE OF THE WAFERS. For it was curiously dark in the raftered roof and the dis- tant corners; curiously light in the great bars of golden sunshine slanting across the floor. In one of them James Greyman stood, a dark silhouette against an arch of pale blue sky, wreathed by the climbing begonia. He was a man of about forty, looking younger than his age, taller than his real height, by reason of his beardless face and the extreme ease and grace of his figure. He was burned brown as a native by constant exposure to the sun; but as he stooped to pick up his glove which had slipped from his hold, a rim of white showed above his wrist. "So I supposed; but why should I save him?" he said briefly. The question, thus crudely put, left her without reply for a minute; during which he waited. Then, with a new tinge of softness in his voice, he went on: " It was a mistake to send for me. I thought so at the time, though, of course, I had no option. But now " " But now? " she echoed in her turn. " There is nothing to be done save to go away again." He turned at the words, but she stopped him by a gesture. " Is there not? " she asked. " I think there is, and so wil' you if you understand — if you will wait and let me speak." His evident impatience made her add quickly, "You can at least do so much for me, surely?" There was a quiver in her voice now, and it surprised her as her previous calm had done; for what was this man to her that his unkindness should give pain? " Certainly," he said, pausing at once, " but I under- stand too much, and I cannot see the use of raking up details. You know them — or think you do. Either way they do not alter the plain fact that I cannot help — be- cause I would not if I could. That sounds brutal; but, unfortunately, it is true. And it is best to tell the truth, as far as it can be told." A faint smile curved her lips. " That is not far. If you will wait I will tell you the truth to the bitter end." He looked at her with sudden interest, for her pride attracted him. She was not in the least pretty; she might be any age from five-and-twenty to five and-thirty. And she — well! she was a lady. But would she tell the HOME, SWEET HOME! I? truth? Women, even ladies, seldom did; still he must wait and hear what she had to say. " I sent for you," she began, " because, knowing you were an adventurer, a man who had had to leave the army under a cloud — in disgrace " He stared at her blankly. Here was the truth about himself at any rate! " I thought, naturally, you would be a man who would take a bribe. There are diamonds in that case; for money is scarce in this house." She paused, to gain firmness for what came next. " I was keeping them for the boy. I have a son in England and he will have to go to school soon; but I thought it better to save his father's reputation instead. They are fine diamonds" — she drew the case closer and opened it — the sunshine, stream- ing in, caught the facets of the stones, turning them to liquid light. " You needn't tell me they are no use," she went on quickly, as he seemed about to speak; " I am not stupid; but that has nothing to do with the question. I want you to save my husband — don't interrupt me, please, for I do want you to understand, and I will tell you the truth. You asked me why? and you think, no doubt, that he does not deserve to be saved. Do you think I do not know that? ]\Ir. Greyman! a wife knows more of her husband than anyone else can do; and I have known for so many years." A sudden softness came into her hearer's eyes. That was true at any rate. She must know many things of which she could not speak; a sort of horror at what she must know, with a man like ^Major Erlton as her hus- band, held him silent. '■' Yet I have saved him so far," she went on, " but if what happened yesterday becomes public property all my trouble is in vain. He will have to leave the regi- ment " " He is not the first man, as you were kind enough to mention just now," interrupted James Greyman, " who has had to leave the army under a cloud. He would sur- vive it — as others have done." " I was not thinking of him at all," she replied quietly. " I was thinking of my son; my only son." " There are other only sons also, Mrs. Erlton," he re- l8 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. torted. " I was my mother's, but I don't think the fact was taken into consideration by the court-martiaL Why should I be more lenient? You have come to the wrong person when you come to me for charity or considera- tion. None was shown to me." '■ Perhaps because you did not need it," she said quickly. " Not need it? " " Many a man falls under the shadow of a cloud blame- lessly. What do they want with charity? " He rose swiftly and so, facing the light again, stood looking out into it. " I am obliged to you," he said after a pause. " Whether you are right or wrong doesn't affect the question from which we have wandered. Ex- cept — " he turned to her again with a certain eagerness — " Mrs. Erlton! You say you are prepared to tell the truth to the bitter end ; then for Heaven's sake let us have it for once in our lives. You never saw me before, nor I you. It is not likely we shall ever meet again. So we can speak without a past or a future tense. You ask me to save your husband from the consequences of his own cheating. I ask why? Why should I sacrifice myself? Why should I suffer? for, mark you, there were heavy bets " " There are the diamonds," she interrupted, pointing to them; their gleam was scarcely brighter than her scornful eyes. He gave a half smile. " Doubtless there are the dia- monds! I can have my equivalent, so far, if I choose; but I don't choose. It does not suit me personally; so that is settled. I can't do this thing, then, to please myself. Now, let us go on. You are a religious woman, I think, Mrs. Erlton — you have the look of one. Then you will say that I should remember my own frailty, and forgive as I would be forgiven. Mrs. Erlton! I am no better than most men, no doubt, but I never remember cheating at cards or pulling a horse as your husband does — it is the brutal truth between us. remember. And if you tell me I'm bound to protect a man from the natural punishment of a great crime because I've stolen a pin, I say you are wrong. That theory won't hold HOME, SWEET HOME! 19 water. If our own faults, even our own crimes, are to make us tender over these things in others, there must be — what, if I remember right, my Colenso used to call an arithmetical progression in error until the Day of Judg- ment; for the odds on sin would rise with every crime. I don't believe in mercy, Airs. Erlton. I never did. Justice doesn't need it. So let us leave religion alone too, and come to other things — altruism — charity — what you will. Now who will benefit by my silence? Will you? You said just now that a wife knows more of her husband than a stranger can. I well believe it. That is why I ask you to tell me frankly, if you really think that a continuance of the life you lead with him can benefit you? " He leaned over the table, resting his head on his hand, his eyes on hers, and then added in a lower voice, " The brutal truth, please. Not as a woman to man, or, for the matter of that, woman to woman; but soul to soul, if there be such a thing." She turned away from him and shook her head. " It is for the boy's sake," she said in muffled tones. " It will be better for him, surely." " The boy," he echoed, rising with a sense of relief. She had not lied, this woman with the beautiful eyes; she had simply shut the door in his face. " You have a por- trait of him, no doubt, somewhere. I should like to see it. Is that it, over the mantelpiece? " He walked over to a colored photograph, and stood looking at it silently, his hands — holding his hunting crop — clasped loosely behind his back. Kate noticed them even in her anxiety; for they were noticeable, ner- vous, fine-cut hands, matching the figure. " He is not the least like you. He is the very image of his father," came the verdict. " Wliat right have you to suppose that anything you or I can do now will over- come the initial fact that the boy is your husband's son, any more than it will ease you of the responsibility of having chosen such a father for the boy? " She gave a quick cr\% more of pain than anger, and hid her face on the table in sudden despair. " You are very cruel," she said indistinctly. He walked back toward her, remorseful at the sight of 20 oA; the pace OE THE IVATEJiS. her miserable self-abasement. He had not meant to hit so hard, being accustomed himself to facing facts with- out flinching. ■' Yes! 1 am cruel; but a life like mine doesn't make a man gentle. And 1 don't see how this trivial conceal- ment of fact — for that is all it would be — can change the boy's character or help him. If I did " he paused. " 1 should like to help you if I could, Mrs. Erlton, if only because you — you refused me charity! But I cannot see my way. It would do no one any good. Begin with me. I'm not a religious man, Mrs. Erlton. I don't believe in the forgiveness of sins. So my soul — if I have one — wouldn't benefit. As for my body? At the risk of you offering me diamonds again," — he smiled charm- ingly, — I must mention that I should lose — how much is a detail — by concealment. So I must go out of the question of benefit. Then there is you " He broke off to walk up and down the room thought- fully, then to pause before her. " I wish you to believe," he said, " that I want really to understand the truth, but I can't, because I don't know one thing. I don't know if you love your husband — or not." She raised her head quickly with a fear behind the resentment of her eyes. '' Put me outside the question too. I have told you that already. It is the simplest, the best way." He bowed cynically. She came no nearer to truth than evasion. " If you wish it, certainly. Then there is the boy. You want to prevent him from realizing that his father is a — let us twist the sentence — what his father is. You have, I expect, sent him away for this purpose. So far good. But will this concealment of mine suffice? Will no one else blab the truth? Even if concealment suc- ceeds all along the line, will it prevent the boy from fol- lowing in his father's steps if he has inherited his father's nature as well as his face? Wouldn't it be a deterrent in that case to know early in life that such instincts can't be indulged with impunity in the society of gentlemen? You will never have the courage to keep the boy out of your life altogether as you are doing now. Sooner or HOME, SWEET HOME! 21 later you will bring him back, he will bring himself back, and then, on the threshold of life, he will have an example of successful dishonesty put before him. Mrs. Erlton! you can't keep up the fiction always; so it is better for you, for me, for him, to tell the truth — and I mean to tell it." She rose swiftly to her feet and faced him, thrusting her hair back from her forehead passionately, as if to clear away aught that might obscure her brain. "And for my husband?" she asked. " Have you no word for him? Is he not to be thought of at all? You asked me just now if I loved him, and I was a coward. Well! I do not love him — more's the pity, for I can't make up the loss of that to him anyhow. But there is enough pity in his life without that. Can't you see it? The pity that such things should be in life at all. You called me a religious woman just now. I'm not, really. It is the pity of such things without a remedy that drives me to believe, and the pity of it which drives me back again upon myself, as you have driven me now. For you are right! Do you think I can't see the shame? Do you think I don't know that it is too late — that I should have thought of all this before I called my boy's nature out of the dark? And yet " her face grew sharp with a pitiful eagerness, she moved forward and laid her hand on his arm. " It is all so dark! You said just now^ that I couldn't keep up the fiction; but need it be a fiction always? What do we know? God gives men a chance sometimes. He gives the whole world a chance sometimes of atoning for many sins. A Spirit moves on the Waters of life bringing something to cleanse and heal. It may be moving now. Give my husband his chance, Mr. Greyman. and I will pray that, whatever it is, it may come quickly." He had listened with startled eyes; now his hand closed on hers in swift negation. " Don't pray for that," he said, in a quick low voice, " it may come too soon for some of us, God knows — too soon for many a good man and true!" Then, as if vexed at his own outburst, he drew back a step, looking at her with a certain resentment. 2 2 OX 7 HE FACE OF THE WATERS. " You plead your cause well, Mrs. Erlton, and it is a. stronger argument than you perhaps guess. So let him have this chance that is coming. Let us all have it, you and I into the bargain. No! don't be grateful, please, for he may prove himself a coward, among other things. So may I, for that matter. One never knows until the chance comes for being a hero — or the other thing." " When the chance comes we shall see," she said, try- ing to match his light tone. " Till then, good-by — you have been very kind." She held out her hand, but he did not take it. " Pardon me! I have been very rude, and you " he paused in his half-jesting words, stooped over her outstretched hand and kissed it. Kate stood looking at the hand with a slight frown after his horse's hoofs died away; and then wath a smile she shut the jewel case. Not that she closed the incident also; for full half an hour later she was still going over all the details of the past interview. And everything seemed to hinge on that unforeseen appeal of hers for a chance of atonement, on that unpremeditated strange suggestion that a Spirit might even then be moving on the face of the waters; until, in that room gay with Eng- lish flowers, and peaceful utterly in its air of security, a terror seized on her body and soul. A causeless terror, making her strain eyes and ears as if for a hint of what was to come and make cowards or heroes of them all. But there was only the flowerful garden beyond the arched veranda, only the soft gurgle of the doves. Yet she sat with quivering nerves till the sight of the gar- dener coming as usual with his watering pot made her smile at the unfounded tragedy of her imaginings. As she passed into the veranda she called to him, in the jargon which served for her orders, not to forget a plentiful supply to the heartsease and the sweet peas; for she loved her poor clumps of English annuals more than all the scented and blossoming shrubs which in those late March days turned the garden into a wilderness of strange perfumed beauty. But her cult of home was a religion with her; and if a visitor remarked that any- thing in her environment was reminiscent of the old HOME, SWEET HOME! 23 country, she rejoiced to have j^iven another exile what was to her as the shadow of a rock in a thirsty land. So, her eye catclhng something barely up to western mark in the pattern ot a collar her tailor was cutting for her new dress, she crossed over to where he squatted in the further corner of the veranda. "That isn't right. Give me something to cut — here! this will do." She drew a broad sheet of native paper from the bundle of scraps beside him, and began on it with the scissors; too full of her idea to notice the faint negation of the man's hand. " There! " she said after a few deft snippings, " that is new fashion," " Huzoor! " assented the tailor submissively as, appar- ently from tidiness, he put away the remainder of the paper, before laying the new-cut pattern on the cloth. His mistress looked down at it critically. There was a broad line of black curves and scjuare dots right across the pattern suggestive of its having been cut from a title- page. But to her ignorance of the Persian character they were nothing but the curves and dots, though the tailor's eyes read clearly in them " The Sword is the Key of Heaven." For he, in company with thousands of other men, had been reading the famous pamphlet pf that name; read- ing it with that thrill of the heart-strings which has been the prelude to half the discords and harmonies of his- tory. Since, quaintly enough, those who may hope to share your heaven are always friends, those who can with certainty be consigned to hell, your enemies. " That is all right," she said. " Cut it well on the bias, so that it won't pucker." As she turned away, she felt the vast relief of being able to think of such trivialities again after the strain and stress of the hours since her husband had come home from the race course, full of excited maledictions on the mean, underhand bribery and spying which might make it necessary for him to send' in his papers — if he could. Kate had heard stories of a similar character before; since Major Erlton knew by experience that she had his reputation more at heart than he had himself, and that 24 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. her brain was clearer, her tact greater than his. But she had never heard one so hopeless. Unless this jockey Greyman, who, her husband said, was so mixed up with native intrigue as to have any amount of false evidence at his command, could be silenced, her labor of years was ruined. So long after her husband had gone off to his bed to sleep soundly, heavily, after the manner of men, Kate had lain awake in hers after the manner of women, resolving to risk all, even to a certain extent honesty, in order to silence this man, this adven- turer; who no doubt was not one whit better than her husband. And now? As her mind flashed back over that inter- view the one thing that stood out above all others was the bearing, the deference of the man as he had stooped to kiss her hand. For the life of her, she — who pro- tested even to herself that such things had no part in her life — could not help a joy in the remembrance; a quick recognition that here was a man who could put romance into a woman's life. The thought was one, however, from which to escape by the first distraction at hand. This happened to be the cockatoo, which, after a bath and plentiful food, looked a different bird on its new perch. " Pretty, pretty poll," she said hastily, with tentative white finger tickling its crest. The bird, in high good humor, bent its head sideways and chuckled inarticu- lately; yet to an accustomed ear the sound held the cadence of the Great Cry, and the tailor, who had heard it given wrathfully, looked up from his work. " Oh, Mififis Erlton! what a boo'ful new poUy," came a silvery lisp. She turned with a radiant smile to greet her next door neighbor's little boy, a child of about three years old, who, pathetically enough, was a great solace to her child-bereft life. " Yes, Sonny, isn't it lovely? " she said, her slim white hand going out to bring the child closer; " and it screams splendidly. Would you like to hear it scream?" Sonny, clinging tightly to her fingers, looked doubt- ful. " Wait till muvver comth, muvver's comin' to zoo esectly. Sonny's always flightened wizout hith muvver." HOME, SWEET HOME! 25 At which piece of diplomacy, Kate, feeling light- hearted, caught the little white-clad golden-curled figure in her arms and ran out with it into the garden, smother- ing the laughing face with kisses as she ran. " Sonny's a little goose to be ' flightened,' " came her glad voice between the laughs and the kisses. " He ought never to be ' flightened ' at all, because no one in all the wide, w'ide world would ever hurt a good little childie like Sonnykins — No one! No one! No one!" She had sat the little fellow down among the flowers by this time, being, in good sooth, breathless with his weight; and now, continuing the game, chased him with pretense booings of "No one! No one!" about the pansy bed, and so round the sweet peas; until in delicious terror he shrieked with delight, and chased her back between her chasings. It was a pretty sight, indeed, this game between the woman and the child. The gardener paused in his water- ing, the tailor at his work; and even the native orderly going his rounds with the brigade order-book grinned broadly, so adding one to the kindly dark faces watch- ing the chasing of Sonny. "My dear Kate! How can you?" The querulous voice broke in on the booings, and made Mrs. Erlton pause and think of her loosened hair pins. The speaker was a fair, diaphanous woman, the most solid-looking part of whose figure, as she dawdled up the path, was the large white umbrella she carried. " Here am I melt- ing with the heat! What I shall do next year if George is transferred to Delhi, I don't know. He says we shan't be able to afiford the hills. And he has the dogcart at some of those eterna^ court-martials. I wonder why the sepoys give so much trouble nowadays. George says they're spoiled. So I came to see if you'll drive me to the band; though I'm not fit to be seen. I was up half the night with baby. She is so cross, and George will have it she must be ill; as if children didn't have tempers! Lucky you, to have your boy at home. And yet you go romping with other people's. I wouldn't; but then I look horrid when I'm hot*" Kate laughed. She did not, and as she rearranged her 26 ox THE FACE OF THE WATERS. hair seemed to have left years of life behind her. " I can't help it," she said. " I feel so ridiculously young myself sometimes — as if I hadn't lived at all, as if nothing be- longed to me, and I was really somebody else. As if " She paused abruptly in her confidences, and, to change the subject, turned to the group behind Mrs. Seymour: — an ayah holding a toddler by the hand, a tall orderly in uniform carrying a year-old baby in his arms; such a languid little mortal as is seldom seen out of India, where the swift, sharp fever of the changing seasons seems to take the very life from a child in a few hours. The flulTy golden head in its limp white sun- bonnet rested inert against the orderly's scarlet coatee, the listless little legs drooped helplessly among the bur- nished belts and buckles. " Poor little chick! Let me have her a bit, orderly," said Kate, laying her hand caressingly on the slack dimpled arm; but baby, with a fretful whine, nestled her cheek closer into the scarlet. A shade of satisfaction made its owner's dark face less impassive, and the small, sinewy, dark hands held their white burden a shade tighter. " She is so cross," complained the mother. " It has been so all day. She won't leave the man for an instant. He must be sick of her, though he doesn't show it. And she used to go to the ayah; but do you know, Kate, I don't trust the woman a bit. I believe she gives opium to the child, so that she may get a little rest." Kate looked at the ayah's face with a sudden doubt. " I don't know," she said slowly. " I think they believe it is a good thing. I remember when Freddv was a baby ^" " Oh, I don't believe they ever think that sort of thing," interrupted Mrs. Seymour. " You never can trust the natives, you know. That's the worst of India. Oh! how I wish 1 was back in dear old England with a real nurse who would take the children ofif my hands." But Kate Erlton was following up her own doubt. " The children trust them " she began. " My dear Kate ! you can't trust children either. Look at baby! It gives me the shudders to think of THE GREAT GULF TIXED. 27 touching Bij-rao, and see how she cuddles up to him," rephed Airs. Seymour, as she dawdled on to the house; then, seeing the bed of heartsease, paused to go into raptures over them. They were like English ones, she said. The puzzled look left Kate's face. " I sent some home last mail," she replied in a sort of hushed voice, " just to show them that we were not cut off from everything we care for; not everything." So, as if by one accord, these two Englishwomen raised their eyes from the pansy bed, and passing by the flowering shrubs, the encircling tamarind trees framing the cozy, home-like house, rested them on the redden- ing gold of the western sky. Its glow lay on their faces, making them radiant. But baby's heavy lids had fallen at last over her heavy eyes as she lay in the orderly's arms, and he glanced at the ayah with a certain pride in his superior skill as a nurse. CHAPTER III. THE GREAT GULF FIXED. It was a quaint house in the oldest quarter of the city of Lucknow, where odd little groves linger between the alleys, so that men pass, at a step, from evil-smelling lanes to cool, scented retreats, dark with orange and mango trees; where birds flutter, and squirrels loll yawning through the summer days, as if the great town were miles aw^ay. It was in the furthest corner of such a flowerless, shady garden that the house reared its lessening stories and projecting eaves above its neighbors. The upper half of it was not unlike an Italian villa in its airiness, its balustraded roof, its green jalousies; but the lower por- tion was unmistakably Indian. It was a perfect rabbit warren of dark cells, crushed in on each other cause- lessly; the very staircase, though but two feet wide, hav- 28 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. ing to fold itself away circumspectly so as to find space to creep upward. But no one lived below, and the dark twists and turns of the brick ladder mattered little to Zora hibi, who lived in the pleasant pavilions above; for she had scarcely ever left them since the day, nearly eight years past, w^hen James Greyman had installed her there with all the honor possible to the situation. Which was, briefly, that he had bought the slip of a girl from a house of ill- fame, as he would have bought a horse, or a flower-pot, or anything else which he thought would make life pleasanter to him. He had paid a long price for her, not only because she was beautiful, but because he pitied the delicate-looking child — for she was little more — just about to enter a profession to which she was evidently a recruit kidnaped in early infancy ;_as so many are in India. Not that his pity would have led him to buy her if she had been ugly, or even dark ; for the creamy ivory tint of her skin satisfied his fastidiousness quite as much as did the hint of a soul in her dark, dreamy eyes. Romance had perhaps had more to do with his purchase than passion; restless, reckless determination to show himself that he had no regrets for the society which had dispensed with his, had had more than either. For he had begun to rent the pleasant pavilions after a few years of adventurous roving had emphasized the gulf fixed between him and his previous life, and forced his pride into leading his present one as happily as he could. As for the girl, those eight years of pure passion on the housetops had been a dream of absolute content. It was so even now, when she lay dying, as so many secluded women do, of a slow decline. To have flowers and fruit brought to her, to find no change in his tender- ness because she was too languid to amuse him, to have him wait upon her and kiss away her protests; all this made her soft warm eyes softer, warmer. It was so unlike anything she had ever heard or dreamed of; it made her blind to the truth, that she was dying. How could this be so when there was no hint of change, when life still gave her all she cared for? She did not, to be THE GREAT GULF FIXED. 29 sure, play tricks with him like a kitten, as she used to; but that was because she was growing old — nearly one and twenty! " She is worse to-day. I deem her close to freedom, Soma, so I have warned the death-tender," said a tall woman, as she straightened the long column of her throat to the burden of a brass water-pot, new-poised on her head, and stepped down from the low parapet of the well which stood in one corner of the shady grove. Sometimes its creaking Persian wheel moaned over the task of sending runnels of water to the thirsty trees; but to-day it was silent, save for an intermittent protest when the man — who was lazily leaning his back against the yoke — put out his strength so as to empty an extra water can or two iuto the trough for the woman's use. He was in the undress uniform of a sepoy, and as he also straightened himself to face the speaker the ex- traordinary likeness between them in face and figure stamped them as twins. It would have been difficult to give the palm to either for superior height or beauty; and in their perfection of form they might have stood as models of the mythical race-founders whose names they bore. For Tara Devi and Soma Chund were Rajpoots of the single Lunar or Yadubansi tribe. She was dressed in an endless scarf of crimson wool, which with its border of white and yellow embroidery hung about her in admirable folds. The gleam of the water-pot matched the dead gold circlets on the brown wrists and ankles; for Tara wore her savings thus, though she had no right to do so, being a widow. But she had been eight years in James Greyman's service ; more than eight bound to him by the strangest of ties. He had been the means of saving her from her husband's funeral pyre; in other words of preventing her from being a saint, of making her outcaste utterly. Since none, not even other widows, would eat or drink with a woman rejected by the very gods on the threshold of Paradise. Such a mental position is well-nigh incomprehensible to western minds. It was confusing even to Tara herself; 30 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. and the mingling- of conscious dignity and conscious degradation, gratitude, resentment, attraction, repulsion, made her a puzzle even to herself at times. '' The master will grieve," replied Soma; his voice was far softer than his sister's had been, but it had the effect of hardening hers still more. "What then?" she asked; "man's sorrow for a w' Oman passes ; or even if it pass not, bears no fruit here, or hereafter. But I, as ihoxi knowest, Soma, would have burned with my love. But for thee, as thou knowest, I would have been suttee (lit. virtuous). But for thee I should have found, ay! and given salvation." She passed on with a sweep of full drapery, bearing her water-pot as a queen might her crown, leaving Soma's handsome face full of conscious-stricken amaze. His sister — from whom, despite her degradation, he had not been able to dissociate himself utterly — had never before rounded on him for his share in her misfortune; but in his heart of hearts he had admitted his responsi- bility at one moment, scorned it the next. True, he had told his young Lieutenant that his brother-in-law was going to be burned, as an excuse for not accom- panying him after black-buck one morning; but who would have dreamed that this commonplace remark W'Ould rouse the Huzoor's curiosity to see the obsequies of a high-caste Rajpoot, and so lead, incidentally, to a file of policemen and the neighboring magistrate drag- ging the sixteen-year old widow from the very flames? — when she w^as drugged, too, and quite happy — when the wrench was over, even for him, and she, to all intents, was a saint scattering salvation on seven generations of inconstant males! Much as he loved Tara, the little twin sister who, so the village gossips loved to tell, had left the Darkness for the Light of Life still clasping his hand, how could he have done her such an injury? As a Rajpoot how could he have brought such a scandalous dishonor on any family? But being also a soldier, as his fathers had been before him, and so leavened unconsciously by much contact with Europeans, he could not help admiring Tara's pluck in refusing to accept the life of a dog. whicli was all that THE GREAT GULF FIXED. 3^ was left to her among her own people. And he had been grateful to the Huzoor, as she was, for giving her good service where he could see her; though he would not for worlds have touched the hand which had lain in his from the beginning of all things. It was unclean now. Still he could not *orget the gossip's story any more than he could forget that James Greyman had been his Lieutenant, and that together they had shot over half Hurreeana. So when he passed through Lucknow on his way to spend his leave in his wife's village, he always gave a day or two of it to the quaint garden-house. And now Tara had definitely accused him of ruining her life! Anger, born of a vague remorse, filled him as he watched her disappear up the plinth. If it was any- body's fault it was the Huzoor's ; or rather of the Sirkar itself who, by high-handed interference with venerable customs, made it possible for a poor man, by a mere slip of the tongue, to injure one bound to him by the closest of ties. " It will leave us naught to ourselves soon," he mut- tered sulkily as he went out to the doorstep to finish polishing the master's sword; that being a recognized office during these occasional visits, which, as it occurred to him in his discontent, would be still more occasional if among other things the Sirkar,- now that Oude was was annexed, took away the extra leave due to foreign service. They had said so in the regiment; and though he was too tough to feel pin-pricks in advance, he had sneered with others in the current jest that the maps were tinted red — /. c, shown to be British territory — by savings stolen from the sepoy's pocket. It was very quiet on the paved slope leading up from the alley to the carved door beyond the gutter. The lane was too narrow for wheeled traffic, the evening not sufficiently advanced for the neighbors to gather in it for gossip. But every now and again a veiled figure would sidle along the further wall, passing good-looking Soma with a flurried shuffle. Whereat, though he knew these ghostly figures to be old women on their way to market, he cocked his turban more awry, and curled his mustachios nearer his eyes; from no set purpose of 32 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. playing the gay Lothario, but for the honor of the regi- ment, and because War and Women go together, East and West. After a time, however, the workmen began to dawdle past from their work, and some of them, remembering Soma, paused to ask him the latest news; a stranger in a native city being equivalent to an evening paper. And, of course, there were questions as to what the regi- ment thought of this and that. But Soma's replies were curt. He never relished being lumped in as a simple Rajpoot with the rest of the Rajpoots, for he was inordi- nately proud of his tribe. That was one reason why he stood aloof, as he did, from much that went on among his comrades. He drilled, it is true, between two of them who were entered as he was — that is to say, as a Rajpoot — on the roster. But the three were in reality as wide apart as the Sun, the Moon, and the Fire from which they respectively claimed descent. They would not have intermarried into each other's families for all the world and its wealth. A causeless differentiation ■which makes, and must make, a people who cling to it incomprehensible to a race which boasts as a check to pride or an encouragement to humility that all men are born of Adam, and which seeks no hall-mark for its descendants save the stamp of the almighty dollar. Soma, therefore, polishing his master's sword sulkily, grew irritable also; especially when the frequenters of the opium and hemp shops began, with wavering steps and lack-luster eyes, to loaf homeward for the evening meal which would give them strength for another dose. There were many such habitual drug-takers in the quar- ter; for it was largely inhabited by poor claimants to nobility who, having nothing to do, had time for dreams. That was why people from other quarters flocked to this one at sundown for gossip; since it is to be had at its best from the opium-eater, whose imagination is stimu- lated, his reason dulled, beyond the power of discrimi- nating even his own truth or falsehood. One of these, a haggard, sallow fellow in torn muslin and ragged em- broidery, stopped with a heavy-lidded leer beside Soma. " So, brother, back again! " he said with the maudlin THE GREA T GULF FIXED. ZZ gravity of a hemp-smoker; "and thou lookest fat. The bone dust must agree with thee." It was as if a bomb had fallen. The Hindoo bystanders, recognizing the rumor that ground bones were mixed with commissariat flour, drew back from the Rajpoot instinctively; the Mohammedans smiled on the sly. Soma himself had in a moment one sinewy hand on the half-drunk creature's throat, the other brandishing the fresh-polished sword. " Bone dust thyself, and pigs meat too, foul-mouthed slayer of sacred kine ! " he gasped, carrying the war into the enemy's countrv. "Thou beast! Unsav the lie!" His indignation, showing that he appreciated the credence some might be disposed to give to the accusa- tion, only made the Hindoos look at each other. The Mohammedans, however, dragged him from the sway- ing figure of the accuser, who, after all, was one of themselves. " Heed him not! " they chorused appeasingly. " 'Tis drug-shop talk, and every sane man knows that for dreams. Lo! his sense is clean gone as horns from a donkey! Sure, thy mother ate chillies in her time for thou to be so hot-blooded. It is not morning, brother, because a hen crows, and a snake is but a snake, and goes crooked even to his own home! " These hoarded saws, with physical force superadded, left Soma reduced to glaring, and renewed claims for a retraction of the insult. The hemp-smoker looked at him mournfully. " Wouldst have me deny God's truth? " he hiccuped. " Lo! I say not thou didst eat it. Thou sayst not, and who am I to decide between a man and his stomach, even though he looks fat? Yet this all know, that as a bird fattens his tail shrinks, and honor is nowhere nowadays. But this I say for certain. Let him eat w'ho will, there is bone dust in the flour — there is bone dust in the flour " He lurched from a supporter's hold and drifted down the lane, half-chanting the words. Soma glared, now, at those doubtful faces which re- 34 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. mained. " 'Tis a lie, brothers! But there, 'tis no use wearing the red coat nowadays when all scoff at it. And why not? when the Sirkar itself mocks our rights. I tell thee at the father-in-law's village, but now, a man who titled me sahib last year puffed his smoke in my face this. And wherefore not? May not every scoun- drel nowadays drag us to court and set us a-bribing underlings as the common herd have to do? We, sol- diers of Oude, who had a Resident of our own always, and " " Nothing lasts for always, save God," said a long- bearded bystander, interrupting Soma's parrot roll of military grievances, " as the IMoulvie said last night at our mosque, it is well he remains ever the same, giving the same plain orders once and for all. So none of the faithful can mistake. God is Might and Right. All the rest is change." ''Wall! zvah!" murmured some respectfully; but the Rajpoot's scowl lost its fierceness in supercilious indif- ference. " That may suit the Moulvie. It may suit thee and thine, syycd-jcc," he replied, with a shrug of the shoul- ders. " It suits not me nor mine, being of a different race. We are Rajpoots, and there is no change pos- sible to that. We are ever the same." The pride in his voice and manner reflected but faintly the inconceivable pride in his heart. Yet he was on the alert, salaaming cheerfully, as James Greyman came riding with a clatter down the alley, and without drawing bridle, passed through the low gateway into the dark garden heavy with the perfume of orange-blossom. His arrival ended the incident, for Soma followed him quickly, and in obedience to his curt order to see the groom rub down the horse while it waited, as it had jjeen a breather round the race course, walked off with it toward the w^ell. It was such an opportunity for ordering other men about as natives dearly love; so that the more autocratic a master is, the better pleased they are to gain dignity by serving him. James Greyman, meanwhile, had paused on the plinth THE GREAT GULF FIXED. 35 to give a low whistle and look upward to the terraced roof. And as he did so his face was full of weariness, and yet of impatience. He had been telling himself that he was a fool ever since he had left Kate Erlton's draw- ing room half an hour before, and even his mad gallop round the steeple-chase course had not effaced the curious sense of compulsion which had made him promise to let her husband go scot-free. Even now, when he waited with that dread at his heart, which of late had been growing stronger day by day, for the answer which Zora loved to make to his signal, his fear lest the Great Silence had fallen between them was lost in the recollection that, if it were so, his freedom had come too late. He hated himself for thus bracketing death and freedom together, but for all that he would not blind himself to its truth. Now that his profession had gone with the King's exile, Zora was, indeed, the only tie to a life which had grown distasteful to him, and when the Great Silence came, as come it must, he had made up his mind to leave James Greyman behind, and go home to England. He was nearing forty, and though the spirit of reckless adventure was fading, the ambitions of his youth seemed to be returning; as they so often do when the burden and heat of passion passes. He was tired of perpetual sunshine; the thought of the cold mists on the hilltops, the wild storms on the west coast, haunted him. He wanted to see them again. Above all, he wanted to hear himself called by his own familiar name, not by the one he had assumed. It had seemed brutal to dream of all this sometimes, while little Zora still lay in his arms smiling contentedly; but it was inevitable. And so, while he waited, watching with the dread growing at his heart for the flutter of the tinsel veil, the half-heard whisper " KhusJi amud-ccd " (welcome), it was inevitable also that the remembrance of his promise to Kate Erlton should invade, and as it were desecrate, his real regret for the silence that seemed to grow deeper every second. It had come too late — too late! There could be no solace in freedom now. That other silence in regard to Major Erlton's misdeeds 3*5 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. meant the loss of every penny he had scraped together for England. He might have to sell up almost every- thing he possessed in order to pay his bets honorably; and that he must do, or he gave away his only hope of recouping his bad luck. Why had he promised? Why had he given up a certainty for that vague chance of which he had spoken, he scarcely knew why, to these cold blue northern eyes with the glint of steel. The remembrance brought a passionate anger at himself. Was there anything in the world worth thinking of now, with that silence new-fallen upon him, except the soft warm eyes which were perhaps closed forever? So, with a quick step, he passed up the stairs and gave his signal knock at the door which led on to the terraced roof. Tara, opening it, answered his look with finger to her lip, and a warning glance to the low string-bed set close to the arches of the summer-house so as to catch the soft-scented breeze. He stepped over to it lightly and looked down on the sleeper; but the relief passed from his face at what he saw there. It could only be a question of hours now. "Why didst not send before?" he asked in a low voice. " I bid thee send if she were worse and she needed me." Once more the anger against that other woman came uppermost. What was she to him that she should filch even half an hour from this one who loved him? He might so easily have come earlier; and then the promise would not have been made. Was he utterly heartless, that this thought would come again and again? " She slept," replied Tara coldly. " And sleep needs naught. Not even Love's kisses. It is nigh the end though, master, as thou seest; so I have warned mother Jewuni, the death tender." She had spoken so far as if she desired to make him wince; now the pain on his face made her add hurriedly: "She hath not sufifered, Huzoor, she hath not complained. Had it been so I would have sent. But sleep is rest." She passed on to a lower roof softening her echoing steps with a quaint crooning lullaby: THE GREA T GULF FIXED. 37 " My breast is rest And rest is Death. Ye who have breath Say which is best ? Death's Sleep is rest ! " Was it so? As he stood, still looking down on the sleeper, something in the lack of comfort, of all the re- finements and luxuries which seem to belong by right to the sickness of dear ones in the West, smote him suddenly with a sense of deprivation, of division. And though he told himself that Death came in far more friendly fashion out there in the sunlight, where you could hear the birds, watch the squirrels, and see the children's kites go sailing overhead in the blue sky; still the bareness of it seemed somehow to reveal the great gulf between his complexity, his endless needs and desires, and the simpHcity of that human creature drift- ing to death, almost as the animals drift, without com- plaint, without fears, or hopes. It seemed so pitiful. The slender figure, still gay in tinsel and bright draper- ies, all cuddled up on the quilt, its oval face resting hardly on the thin arm where the bracelets hung so loosely, had an uncared-for look. It seemed alone, apart; as far from Death in its nearness to Life, as it was from Life in its closeness to Death. In swift pity he stooped to risk an awakening by gathering it into his 'warm friendly arms. It would at least feel the beating of another human heart when it lay there. It would at least be more comfort- able than on the bare, hard, pillowless bed. But he paused. How could he judge? How dare he judge even for that wasted body, which, despite its soft- ness, had never known half the luxuries his claimed? So he left her lying as he had often seen her sleep, all curled up on herself like a tired squirrel, and passing to the parapet leaned over it looking moodily down into the darkening orange trees. Their heavy perfume floated upward, reminding him of many another night in spring- time spent with Zora upon this terraced roof. And suddenly his hand fell in a gesture of sheer anger. Before God! it had been unfair; this idyl on the house- tops. The world had held no more for her save her pas- 38 0,V THE FACE OF THE WATERS. sion for him, pure in its very perfection. His for her had been but a small part of his life. It never was more than that to a man, in reality, and so this sort of thing must always be unfair. That she had been content made it worse, not better. Poor little soul! drifting away from the glow and the glamour. A resentment for her, more than for himself, made him go to where Tara sat gossiping with her fellow-servant on the other roof and bid them wait downstairs. If the silence were indeed about to fall, if the glow and the glamour were going, then she and he might at least be alone once more beneath the coming stars; alone in the soft-scented darkness which had so often seemed to clasp them closer to each other as they sat in it like a couple of children whispering over a secret. Closer! As he leaned over the parapet his keen eyes stared down into the half-seen city spreading below him. Wide, tree-set, full of faint sounds of life; the wreaths of smoke from thousands of hearths rising to obscure it from his view. Obscuring it hopelessly with their tale of a life utterly apart from any he could lead. Even there on the housetop he had only pretended to lead it. It was not she, drifting to death so contentedly, who was alone! It was he. Yet some men he had known had seemed able to combine the two lives. They had been content to think half-caste thoughts, to rear up a tribe of half-caste children; while he? How many years was it since he had seen Zora weeping over a still little mor- sel of humanity, his child and hers, that lay in her tinseled veil? She had wept, mostly because she was afraid he might be angry because his son had never drawn breath; and he had comforted her. He had never told her of the relief it was to him, of the vague repulsion which the thought of a child had always brought with it. One could not help these things; and, after all, she had only cared because she was afraid he cared. She did not crave for motherhood either. It was the glow and glamour that had been the bond between them; nothing else. And, thank Heaven! she had never tired of it, had never seen him tire of it — for Death would come before that now. THE GREAT GULF FIXED. 39 A chiming clash of silver made him turn quickly. She had awakened, and seeing him by the parapet, had set her small feet to the ground, and now stood trying to steady herself by her thin, wide-spread arms. " Zora! wait! I am coming," he cried, starting forward. Then he paused, speech and action arrested by some- thing in her look, her gesture. " Let me come," she murmured, her breath gone with the effort. " I can come. I must be able to come. My lord is so near — so near." A fierce pity made him stand still. " Surely thou canst come," he answered. " I will stay here." As she stood, with parted lips, waiting for a glint of strength ere she tried to walk, her swaying figure, the brilliance of her eyes, the heaving of her delicate throat, cut him to the very heart for her sake more than for his own. Then the jingle of her silver anklets rose again in irregular cadence, to cease at the next pillar where she paused, steadying herself against the cold stone to regain her breath. " Surely, I can come ; and he so near," she murmured wistfully, half to herself. " Thou art in too great a hurry, sweetheart. There is plenty of time. The stars are barely lit, and star-time is ever our time." He set his teeth over the words; "but the glow and the glamour should not fail her yet. He would take her back with him while he could to the past which had been so full of it. " Come slower, my bird, I am waiting," he said again as the jingling cadence ceased once more. "It is so strange" she gasped; "I feel so strange." And even in the dim light he could see a vague terror, a pitiful amaze in her face. That must not be. That must be stopped. " And it is strange," he answered quickly. " Strange, indeed, for me to wait like a king, when thou art my queen ! " A faint smile drove the wonder away, a faint laugh mingled with the chiming and clashing. She was like a wounded bird, he thought, as he watched her; a wounded bird fluttering to find shelter from death. 4° ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. " Take care! Take care of the step! " he cried, as a stumble made him start forward ; but when she recovered herself blindly he stood still once more, waiting. Let her come if she could. Let her keep the glamour. Keep it! She had done more than that. She had given it back to him at its fullest, as, close at hand he saw her radiant face, and his outstretched hands met hers warm and clasping. The touch of them made him for- get all else; he drew her close to him passionately. She gave a smiling sob of sheer content, raising her face to meet his kisses. " I have come," she whispered. " I have come to my king." Her voice ended like a sigh. Then there was silence, a fainter sigh, then silence again. " Zora! " he called with a sudden dread at his heart. " WhatisitPZora! Zoral' Half an hour afterward, Tara Devi, obeying her master's summons, fotmd him standing beside the bed, which he had dragged out under the stars, and flung up her arms to give the wail for what she saw there. "Hush!" he said sternly, clutching at her shoulder. " I will not have her disturbed." Tara looked at him wonderingly. " There is no fear of that," she replied clearly, loudly, " none shall disturb Zora again. She hath found that freedom in the future. For the rest of us, God knows! The times are strange. So let her have her right of wailing, master. She will feel silent in the grave without the voices of her race." He drew his hand away sharply; even in death a great gulf lay between him and the woman he had loved. So the death wail rang out clamorously through the soft dark air. CHAPTER IV. TAPE AND SEALING-WAX. " I can't think," said a good-looking middle-aged man as he petulantly pushed aside a pile of official papers, " where Dashe picks these things up. T never come across them. And it is not as 'f he were in a big station TAPE AND SEALING-WAX. 4 1 or — or in the swim in any way." He spoke fretfully, as one might who, having done his best, has failed. And he had grounds for this feeling, since the fact that the diffident district-officer named Dashe was not in the swim, must clearly have been due to his official supe- riors; the speaker being one of them. Fortunately, however, for England, these diffident sons of hers cannot always hide their lights under bushels. As the biographies of many Indian statesmen show, some outsider notices a gleam of common sense amid the gloom, and steers his course by it. Now Mr. Dashe's intimate knowledge of a certain jungle tract in this dis- trict had resulted in a certain military magnate bagging three tigers. From this to a reliance on his political per- ceptions is not so great a jump as might appear; since a man acquainted with the haunt of every wald beast in his jurisdiction may be credited with knowledge of other dangerous inhabitants. So much so that the military magnate, being impressed by some casual remarks, had asked Mr. Dashe to put down his views on paper, and had passed them on to a great political light. It was he who sat at the table looking at a broadsheet printed in the native character, as if it were a personal affront. The military magnate, who had come over to discuss the question, was lounging in an easy-chair with a cheroot. They were both excellent specimens of Englishmen. The civilian a trifle bald, the soldier a trifle gray; but one glance was sufficient to judge them neither knaves nor fools. " That's the proclamation you're at now, isn't it? " asked the military magnate, looking up, " I'm afraid I could only make out a w^ord here and there. That's the worst of Dashe. He's so deuced clever at the vernacu- lars himself that he imagines other people " The political, who had earned his first elevation from the common herd to the Secretariat by a nice taste in Persian couplets suitable for durbar speeches, smiled compassionately. " ]\Iy dear sir! This is not even shikiisf [broken character]. It is lithographed, and plain sailing to any- one not a fool — I mean to anvone on the civil side, of 42 OJV THE FACE OF THE WATERS. course — you soldiers have not to learn the language. But 1 have a translation here. As this farrago of Dashe's must go to Calcutta in due course, 1 had one made for the Governor General's use." He handed a paper across the table, and then turned to the next paragraph of the jeremiad. The military magnate laid down his cigar, took up the document and glanced at it apprehensively, resumed his cigar, and settled himself in his chair. It was a very comfortable one and matched the office-room, which, being in the political light's private house, was under the supervision of his wife, who was a notable woman. Her portrait stood in the place of honor on the mantelpiece and it was flanked by texts; one inculcating the virtue of doing as you would be done by, the other the duty of doing good without ceasing. Both rather dangerous maxims when you have to deal with a different personal and ethical standard of happiness and righteous- ness. There was also a semicircle of children's photo- graphs — of the kind known as positives — on the table round the official ink-pot. When the sun shone on their glasses, as it did now through a western window, they dazzled the eyes. Maybe it was their hypnotizing in- fluence which inclined the father of the family toward treating every problem which came to that office-table as if the first desideratum was their welfare, their appro- bation; not, of course, as his children, but as the repre- sentative Englishmen and women of the future. Yet he was filled with earnest desires to do his duty by those over whom he had been set to rule, and as he read, his sense of responsibility was simply portentous, and his pen, scratching fluently in comments over the half mar- gin, was full of wisdom. This sound was the only one in the room save, occasionally, voices raised eagerly in the rehearsal going on in the drawing room next door. It was a tragedy in aid of an orphan asylum in England which the notable wife was getting up; and once her voice could be heard distinctly, saying to her daughter, " Oh, Elsie, I'm sure you could die better than that! " Meanwhile the military magnate was reading: " I, servant of God, the all-powerful, and of the TAPE AND SEALING-WAX. 43 prophet Mohammed — to whom be all praise. I, Syyed Ahmed-Oolah, the dust of the feet of the descendants of Huzrnt Ameer-Oolah-Moomerccn-Ali-Moortuza, the Holy." He shifted uneasily, looked across the table, appeared discouraged by that even scratching, and went on : " I, Syyed Ahmed, after preferring my salaams and the blessings of Holy War, to all believers of the sect of Sheeahs or the sect of Sunnees alike, and also to all those having respectful regards to the Faith, declare that I, the least of servants in the company of those waiting on the Prophet, did by the order of God receive a Sword of Honor, on condition that I should proclaim boldly to all the duty of combining to drive out Infidels. In this, therefore, is there great Reward; as is written in the Word of God, since His Gracious Power is mighty for success. Yea! and if any fail, will they not be rid of all the ends of this evil world, and attain the Joys and Glories of Martyrdom? So be it. A sign is ever sufficient to the intelligent, and the Duty of a servant is simply to point the way." W'hen he had finished he laid the document down on the table, and for a minute or so continued to pufif at his cigar. Then he broke silence with that curious con- straint in his tone which most men assume when reli- gious topics crop up in general conversation. " I wonder if this— this paper is to be considered the sign, or " — he hesitated for a moment, then the cadence of the procla- mation being suggestive, he finished his sentence to match — " or look we for another? " " Another! " retorted his companion irritably. " Ac- cording to Pashe the whole of India is one vast sign-post! He seems to think we in authority are blind to this. On the contrary, there is scarcely one point he mentions which is not, I say this confidentially of course, under inquiry. I have the files in my confidential box here and can show them to you now. No! by the way, the head clerk has the key — that proclamation had to be trans- lated, of course. But, naturally, we don't proclaim this on the housetops. We might hurt people's feelings, or give rise to unfounded hopes. As for these bazaar rumors Dashe retails with such zest, I confess I think 44 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. it undignified for a district-officer to give any heed to them. They are inevitable with an ignorant population, and we, having the testimony of a good conscience," — he glanced almost unconsciously at the mantelpiece, — " should disregard these ridiculous lies. Of course every- one — everyone in the swim, that is — admits that the native army is most unsettled. And as Sir Charles Napier declared, mutiny is the most serious danger in the future; in fact, if the first symptoms are not grappled with, it may shake the very foundations. But we are grai)pling with it, just as we are grappling, quietly, with the general distrust. That was a most mischievous paragraph, by the way, in the Chris- tian Observer, jubilant over the alarm created by those first widow re-marriages the other day. So was that in The Friend of India, calling attention to the fact that a regular prayer was offered up in all the mosques for the Restoration of the Royal f'amily. We don't want these things noticed. We want to create a feeling of security by ignoring them. That is our policy. Then as for Dashe's political news, it is all stale! That story, for instance, of the. Embassy from Persia, and of the old King of Delhi having turned a Slieeah " " That has something to do with saying Amen, hasn't it?" interrupted the military magnate, with the air of one determined to get at the bottom of things at all costs to himself. The political light smiled in superior fashion. " Par- tially; but politically — as a gauge, I mean, to probable antagonism — Sheeahs and Sunnees are as wide apart as Protestants and Papists. The fact that -the Royal Family of Oude are Sheeahs, and the Delhi one Sunnees, is our safeguard. Of course the old King's favorite wife, Zeenut Maihl, is an Oude woman, but I don't credit the rumors. I had it carefully inquired into, however, by a man who has special opportunities for that sort of work. A very intelligent fellow, Greyman by name. He has a black w'ife or — or something of that sort, which of course helps him to understand the natives better than most of us who — er — who don't — you understand " TAPE AND SEALING-WAX. 45 The military magnate, having a sense of humor, smiled to himself. " Perfectly," he replied, " and I'm in- clined to think that perhaps there is something to be said for a greater laxity." In his turn he glanced at the man- telpiece, and paused before that immaculate presence. " The proclamation, however," he went on hurriedly, " appears to me a bit dangerous. Holy War is awkward, and a religious fanatic is a tough subject even to the regu- lars." He had seen a rush of Ghazees once and the mem.ory lingered. " Undoubtedly. And as we have pointed out again and again to your Department, here and at home, the British garrisons are too scattered. These large acces- sions of territory have put them out of touch with each other. But that again is being grappled with. In fact, personally, I believe we are getting on as well as can be expected." He glanced here at the semicircle of chil- dren as if the phrase were suggestive. " We are doing our best for India and the Indians. Now here, in Oude, things are wonderfully ship-shape already. Despite Jackson and Gubbins' tiffs over trifles they are both splendid workers, and Lucknow was never so well gov- erned as it is to-day." " But about the proclamation," persisted his hearer. " Couldn't you get some more information about it? That Greyman, for instance." " I'm afraid not. He refused some other work I offered him not long ago. Said he was going home for good. I sometimes wish I could. It is a thankless task slaving out here and being misunderstood, even at home. Being told in so many words that the very system under which we were recruited has failed. Poor old Hailey- bury! I only hope competition will do as well, but I doubt it; these new fellows can never have the old cspr'xi de corps; won't come from the same class! One of the Rajah's people was questioning me about it only this morning — they read the English newspapers, of course. ' So we are not to have sahibs to rule over us,' he said, looking black as thunder. ' Any kraiii's (lit. low-caste English) son will do, if he has learned enough.' I tried 4