The tragedy of Massacre Ghât, intensified by the crowning infamy of the Well, brought a new element into the struggle. Hitherto not one European in a hundred in India regarded the Mutiny as other than a local, though serious, attempt to revive a fallen dynasty. The excesses at Meerut, Delhi, and other towns were looked upon as the work of unbridled mobs. Sepoys who revolted and shot their officers came under a different category to the slayers of tender women and children. But the planned and ordered treachery of Cawnpore changed all that. Thenceforth every British-born man in the country not only realized that the government had been forced into a Titanic contest, but he was also swayed by a personal and absorbing lust for vengeance. Officers and men, regulars and volunteers alike, took the field with the fixed intent of exacting an expiatory life for each hair on the head of those unhappy victims. And they kept the vow they made. To this day, though half a century has passed, the fertile plain of the Doab – that great tract between the Ganges and the Jumna – is dotted with the ruins of gutted towns and depopulated villages. But that was not yet. India was fated to be almost lost before it was won again.

On the night of June 4th, when the roomy budgerow carrying Winifred Mayne and her escort drifted away from the walls of the Nana’s palace at Bithoor, there was not a breath of wind on the river. The mat sail was useless, but a four-mile-an-hour current carried the unwieldy craft slowly down stream, and there was not the slightest doubt in the minds of either of the Englishmen on board as to their course of action.

Mr. Mayne was acquainted with Cawnpore and Sir Hugh Wheeler was an old friend of his.

“Wheeler has no great force at his disposal,” said he to Malcolm. “It is evident that the native regiments have just broken out here, but, by this time, our people in the cantonment must have heard of events elsewhere, and they have surely seized the Magazine, which is well fortified and stands on the river. If I can believe a word that the Nana said, the sepoys will rush off to Delhi to-night, just as they did at Meerut, Aligarh, and Etawah. I am convinced that our best plan is to hug the right bank and disembark near the Magazine.”

“Is it far?” asked Malcolm.

“About eight miles.”

“I wonder why the Begum was so insistent that we should go back along the Grand Trunk Road?”

Mayne hesitated. He knew that Winifred was listening.

“It is hard to account for the vagaries of a woman’s mind, or, shall I say, of the mind of such a woman,” he answered lightly. “You will remember that when you came to our assistance outside Meerut she was determined to take us, willy-nilly, to Delhi.”

Malcolm, who had heard Roshinara’s impassioned speech and looked into her blazing eyes, thought that her motives were stronger than mere caprice. He never dreamed of the true reason, but he feared that she knew Cawnpore had fallen and her curiously friendly regard for himself might have inspired her advice. Here, again, Winifred’s presence tied his tongue.

“Well,” he said, with a cheerless laugh, “I, at any rate, must endeavor to reach Wheeler. I am supposed to be bearing despatches, but they were taken from me when I was knocked off my horse in the village – ”

“Were you attacked?” asked Winifred, and the quiet solicitude in her voice was sweetest music in her lover’s ears.

His brief recital of the night’s adventures was followed by the story of the others’ journey and detention at Bithoor. It may be thought that Mr. Mayne, with his long experience of India, should have read more clearly the sinister lesson to be derived from the treatment meted out that night to a British Officer by the detachment of sowars, amplified, as it was, by their open references to the Nana as a Maharajah. But he was not yet disillusioned. And, if his judgment were at fault, he erred in good company, for Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner at Lucknow, was even then resisting the appeals, the almost insubordinate urging, of the headstrong Martin Gubbins that the sepoys in the capital of Oudh should be disarmed.

Meanwhile the boat lurched onward. Soon a red glow in the sky proclaimed that they were nearing Cawnpore. Though well aware that the European houses were on fire, they were confident that the Magazine would be held. They helped Akhab Khan, Chumru, and the two troopers to rig a pair of long sweeps, and prepared to guide the budgerow to the landing-place.

Winifred was stationed at the rudder. As it chanced the three sowars took one oar and Chumru helped the sahibs with the other, and the two sets of rowers were partly screened from each other by the horses. Malcolm was saying something to Winifred when the native bent near him and whispered:

“Talk on, sahib, but listen! Your men intend to jump ashore and leave you. They have been bitten by the wolf. Don’t try to stop them. Name of Allah, let them go!”

Frank’s heart throbbed under this dramatic development. He had no reason to doubt his servant’s statement. The faithful fellow had nursed him through a fever with the devotion of a brother, and Malcolm had reciprocated this fidelity by refusing to part with him when he, in turn, was stricken down by smallpox. In fact, Frank was the only European in Meerut who would employ the man, whose extraordinary appearance went against him. Cross-eyed, wide-mouthed, and broken-nosed, with a straggling black beard that ill concealed the tokens on his face of the dread disease from which he had suffered, Chumru looked a cut-throat of the worst type, “a hungry, lean-fac’d villain, a mere anatomy.” Aware of his own ill repute, he made the most of it. He tied his turban with an aggressive twist, and was wont to scowl so vindictively at the mess khamsamah that his master, quite unconsciously, always secured the wing of a chicken or the best cut of the joint.

Yet this gnome-like creature was true to his salt at a time when he must have felt that his sahib, together with every other sahib in India, was doomed; his eyes now shot fiery, if oblique, shafts of indignation as he muttered his thrilling news.

Malcolm did not attempt to question him. He glanced at the sowars, and saw that their carbines were slung across their shoulders. Chumru interpreted the look correctly.

“Akhab Khan prevented those Shia dogs from shooting you and Mayne-sahib,” went on the low murmur. “They said, huzoor, that the Nana wanted the miss-sahib, and that they were fools to help you in taking her away, but Akhab Khan swore he would fight on your honor’s side if they unslung their guns. They do not know I heard them as I was sitting behind the mast, and I took care to creep off when their heads were turned toward the shore.”

“Here we are,” cried Mayne, who little guessed what Chumru’s mumbling portended. “There is the ghât.

In this instance, steps leading down to the river: also, a mountain range.

If it were not for the mist we could see the Magazine just below, on the left.”

Assuredly, Frank Malcolm’s human clay was being tested in the furnace that night. He had to decide instantly what line to follow. In a minute or less the boat would bump against the lowermost steps, and, if Akhab Khan and his companions were, indeed, traitors, the others on board were completely at their mercy. Mayne was unarmed, Chumru’s fighting equipment lay wholly in his aspect, while Malcolm’s revolvers were in the holsters, and his sword was tied to Nejdi’s saddle, its scabbard and belt having been thrown aside while Abdul Huq was robbing him.

The broad-beamed budgerow presented a strangely accurate microcosm of India at that moment. The English people on her deck were numerically inferior to the natives, and deprived by accident of the arms that might have equalized matters. Their little army was breathing mutiny, but was itself divided, if Chumru were not mistaken, seeing that all were for revolt, but one held out that the Feringhis’ lives should be spared. And, even there, the cruel dilemma that offered itself to the ruler of every European community in the country was not to be avoided, for, if Malcolm tried to obtain his weapons his action might be the signal for a murderous attack, while, if he made no move, he left it entirely at the troopers’ discretion whether or not he and Mayne should be shot down without the power to strike a blow in self-defense.

Luckily he had the gift of prompt decision that is nine tenths of generalship. Saying not a word to alarm Mayne, who was still weak from the wound received an hour earlier, he crossed the deck, halting on the way to rub Nejdi’s black muzzle.

The sowars were watching him. With steady thrust of the port sweep they were heading the budgerow toward the ghât.

He went nearer and caught the end of the heavy oar.

“Pull hard, now,” he said encouragingly, “and we will be out of the current.”

He was facing the three men, and his order was a quite natural one under the circumstances. Obviously, he meant to help. Stretching their arms for a long and strong stroke, they laid on with a will. Instantly, he pressed the oar downwards, thus forcing the blade out of the water, and threw all his strength into its unexpected yielding. Before they could so much as utter a yell, Akhab Khan and another were swept headlong into the river, while the third man lay on his back on the deck with Frank on top of him. The simplicity of the maneuver insured its success. Neither Mayne nor Winifred understood what had happened until Malcolm had disarmed the trooper, taken his cartridge pouch, and thrown him overboard to sink or swim as fate might direct. He regretted the loss of Akhab Khan, but he recalled the queer expression on the man’s face when he read Bahadur Shah’s sonorous titles.

“Light of the World, Renowned King of Kings, Lord of all India, Fuzl-Ilahi, Panah-i-din!”

That appeal to the faith was too powerful to be withstood. Yet Malcolm was glad the man had been chivalrous in his fall, for he had taken a liking to him.

Chumru, of course, after the first gasp of surprise, appreciated the sahib’s strategy.

“Shabash!” he cried, “Wao, wao, huzoor!

“Bravo! Well done, your honor!”

May I never see the White Pond of the Prophet if that was not well planned.”

“Oh, what is it?” came Winifred’s startled exclamation. It was so dark, and the horses, no less than the sail, so obscured her view of the fore part of the boat, that she could only dimly make out Malcolm’s figure, though the sounds of the scuffle and splashing were unmistakable.

“We are disbanding our native forces – that is all,” said Frank. “Press the tiller more to the left, please. Yes, that is right. Now, keep it there until we touch the steps.”

The shimmering surface of the river near the boat was broken up into ripples surrounding a black object. Malcolm heard the quick panting of one in whose lungs water had mixed with air, and he hated to think of even a rebel drowning before his eyes. Moved by pity, he swung the big oar on its wooden rest until the blade touched the exhausted man, whose hands shot out in the hope of succor. After some spluttering a broken voice supplicated:

“Mercy, sahib! I saved you when you were in my power. Show pity now to me.”

“It is true, then, that you meant to desert, Akhab Khan?” said Frank sternly.

“Yes, sahib. One cannot fight against one’s brothers, but I swear by the Prophet – ”

“Nay, your oaths are not needed. You, at least, did not wish to commit murder. Cling to that oar. The ghât is close at hand.”

“Then, sahib, I can still show my gratitude. If you would save the miss-sahib, do not land here. The Magazine has been taken. The cavalry have looted the Treasury. All the sahib-log have fallen.”

“Is this a true thing that thou sayest?”

“May I sink back into the pit if it be not the tale we heard at Bithoor!”

By this time Mayne was at Frank’s side.

“I fear we have dropped into a hornets’ nest,” said he. “There is certainly an unusual turmoil in the bazaar, and houses are on fire in all directions.”

Even while they were listening to the fitful bellowing of a distant mob bent on mad revel a crackle of musketry rang out, but died away as quickly. The budgerow grounded lightly when her prow ran against the stonework of the ghât. Again did Malcolm make up his mind on the spur of the moment.

“I will spare your life on one condition, Akhab Khan,” he said. “Go ashore and learn what has taken place at the Magazine. Return here, alone, within five minutes. Mark you, I say ‘alone.’ If I see more than one who comes I shall shoot.”

“Huzoor, I shall not betray you.”

“Go, then.”

He drew the man through the water until his feet touched the steps. Climbing up unsteadily, Akhab Khan disappeared in the gloom. Then they waited in silence. The heavy breath of the bazaar was pungent in their nostrils, and, for a few seconds, they listened to the trooper’s retreating footsteps. Frank leaped ashore and pushed the boat off, while Mayne held her by jamming the leeward oar into the mud. It was best to make sure.

They did not speak. Their ears were strained as their tumultuous thoughts. At last, some one came, a man, and his firm tread of boot-shod feet betokened a soldier. It was the rebel who had become their scout.

“Sahib,” said he, “it is even as I told you. Cawnpore is lost to you.”

“And you, Akhab Khan, do you go or stay?”

There was another moment of tense silence.

“Would you have me draw sword against the men of my own faith?” was the despairing answer.

“It would not be for the first time,” said Malcolm coldly. “But I could never trust thee again. Yet hast thou chosen wrongly, Akhab Khan. When thy day of reckoning comes, may it be remembered in thy favor that thou didst turn most unwillingly against thy masters!”

Akhab Khan raised his right hand in a military salute. Suddenly, his erect form became indistinct, and faded out of sight. The boat was traveling down stream once more. Around her the river lapped lazily, and the solemn quietude of the mist-covered waters was accentuated by the far-off turmoil in the city.

The huge sail thrust its yard high above the fog bank, and watchers on the river side saw it. Some one hailed in the vernacular, and Chumru replied that they came from Bithoor with hay. Prompted by Malcolm he went on:

“How goes the good work, brother?”

“Rarely,” came the voice. “I have already requited two bunniahs to whom I owed money. Gold is to be had for the taking. Leave thy budgerow at the bridge, friend, and join us.”

The raucous, half-drunken accents substantiated Akhab Khan’s story. The unseen speaker was evidently himself a boatman. He was rejoicing in the upheaval that permitted debts to be paid with a bludgeon and money to be made without toil.

Mayne caught Frank by the arm.

“We are drifting towards the bridge of boats that carries the road to Lucknow across the river,” he said, in the hurried tone of a man who sees a new and paralyzing danger. “There is a drawbridge for river traffic, but how shall we find it, and, in any event, we must be seen.”

“Are there many houses on the opposite bank?” asked Malcolm.

“Not many. They are mostly mud hovels. What is in your mind?”

“We might endeavor to cross the river before we reach the bridge. By riding boldly along the Lucknow Road we shall place many miles between ourselves and Cawnpore before day breaks.”

“That certainly seems to offer our best chance. We have plenty of horses and we ought to be in Lucknow soon after dawn.”

“What if matters are as bad there?”

“Impossible! Lawrence has a whole regiment with him, the 32d, and plenty of guns. Poor Wheeler, at Cawnpore, commanded a depôt, mostly officials on the staff, and invalids. At any rate, Malcolm, we must have some objective. Lucknow spells hope. Neither Meerut nor Allahabad is attainable. And what will become of Winifred if we fail to reach some station that still holds out?”

The girl herself now came to them.

“I refuse to remain alone any longer,” she said. “I don’t know a quarter of what is going on. I have tied the tiller with a rope. Please tell me what is happening and why a man shouted to Chumru from the bank.”

She spoke calmly, with the pleasantly modulated voice of a well-bred Englishwoman. If aught were wanted to enhance the contrast between the peace of the river and the devildom of Cawnpore it was given in full measure by her presence there. How little did she realize the long drawn-out agony that was even then beginning for her sisters in that ill-fated entrenchment! It was the idle whim of fortune that she was not with them. And not one was destined to live – not one among hundreds!

But it was a time for action, not for speech. Malcolm asked her gently to go back to the helm and keep it jammed hard-a-starboard until they arrived at the left bank. Then he took an oar and Mayne and Chumru tackled the other. The three men pulled manfully athwart the stream. They could not tell what progress they were making, and the Ganges ran swiftly in mid-channel, being five times as wide as the Thames at London Bridge. Yet they toiled on with desperate energy. They had crossed the swirl of deep water when a low, straight-edged barrier appeared on the starboard side, and, before they could attempt to avert the calamity, the budgerow crashed against a pontoon and drove its bows under the superstructure. It was locked there so firmly that a score of men had to labor for hours next day ere it could be cleared.

Nevertheless, that which they regarded as a misfortune was a blessing. The shock of the collision alarmed the horses, and one of them climbed like a cat on to the bridge. Frank sprang after him and caught the reins before the startled creature could break away. And that which one horse could do might be done by seven. Bidding Chumru arrange some planks to give the others better foothold, he told Winifred and Mayne to join him and help in holding the animals as they gained the roadway. A couple of natives who ran up from the Lucknow side were peremptorily ordered to stand. Indeed, they were harmless coolies and soon they offered to assist, for the deadly work in Cawnpore that night was scarcely known to them as yet. In a couple of minutes the fugitives were mounted, each of the men leading a spare horse and advancing at a steady trot; though the bridge swayed and creaked a good deal under this forbidden pace, they soon found by the upward grade that they were crossing the sloping mud bank leading to the actual highway.

Thirty-five miles of excellent road now separated them from Lucknow. The hour was not late, about half past ten, so they had fully six hours of starlit obscurity in which to travel, because, though the month was June, India is not favored with the prolonged twilight of dawn and eve familiar to other latitudes.

They clattered through the outlying bazaar without disturbing a soul. Probably every man, woman and child able to walk was adding to the din in the great city beyond the river. Pariah dogs yelped at them, some heavy carts drawn across the road caused a momentary halt, and a herd of untended buffaloes lying patiently near their byre told the story of the excitement that had drawn their keeper across the bridge.

Soon they were in the open, and a fast canter became permissible. They passed by many a temple devoted to Kali or elephant-headed Buddha, by many a sacred mosque or tomb of Mohammedan saint, by many a holy tree decorated with ribbons in honor of its tutelary deity. Now they were flying between lanes of sugarcane or tall castor-oil plants, now traversing arid spaces where

reh

, the efflorescent salt of the earth, had killed all vegetation and reduced a once fertile land to a desert.

Five miles from Cawnpore they swept through the hamlet of Mungulwar. They saw no one, and no one seemed to see them, though it is hard to say in India what eyes may not be peering through wattle screen or heavy barred door. In the larger village of Onao they met a group of chowkidars, or watchmen, in the main street. These men salaamed to the sahib-log, probably on account of the stir created by the horses. Without drawing rein, they pushed on to Busseerutgunge, crossed the river Sai and neared the village of Bunnee.

If only men could read the future, how Malcolm’s soldier spirit would have kindled as Mayne told him the names of those squalid communities! Each yard of that road was destined to be sprinkled with British blood, while its ditches would be choked with the bodies of mutineers. But these things were behind the veil, and the one dominant thought possessing Malcolm now was that unless Winifred and her uncle obtained food of some sort they must fall from their saddles with sheer exhaustion. He and his servant had made a substantial meal early in the evening, but the others had eaten nothing owing to the alarm and confusion that reigned at Bithoor.

Winifred, indeed, in response to a question, said faintly that she thought she could keep going if she had a drink of milk. Such an admission, coming from her brave lips, warned Frank that he must call a halt regardless of loss of time. Assuredly, this was an occasion when the sacrifice of a few minutes might avoid the grave risk of a breakdown after daybreak. So when they entered Bunnee they pulled up, and discussed ways and means of getting something to eat.

It was then that Malcolm gave evidence that his devotion to the soldier’s art had not been practised in vain. Mr. Mayne thought they should rouse the household at the first reputable looking dwelling they found.

“No,” said Frank. “Mounted, and in motion, we have some chance of escape unless we fall in with hostile cavalry. On foot, we are at the mercy of any prowling rascals who may be on the warpath. Let us rather look out for a place somewhat removed from the main road. There we do not court observation, and we are sufficiently well armed to protect ourselves from any hostile move on the part of those we summon.”

The older man agreed. Rank and wealth count for little in the great crises of life. Here was a Judicial Commissioner of Oudh a fugitive in his own province, and ready to obey a subaltern’s slightest wish!

Chumru quickly picked out the house of a zemindar, or land-owner, which stood in its own walled enclosure behind a clump of trees. A rough track led to the gate, and Frank knocked loudly on an iron-studded door.

He used the butt end of a revolver, so his rat-tat was imperative enough, but the garden might have been a graveyard for all the notice that was taken by the inhabitants. He knocked again, with equal vehemence and with the same result. But he knew his zemindar, and after waiting a reasonable interval he said clearly:

“Unless the door is opened at once it will be forced. I am an officer of the Company, and I demand an entry.”

“Coming, sahib,” said an anxious voice. “We knew not who knocked, and there are many budmashes about these nights.”

The door yielded to the withdrawal of bolts, but it was still held on a chain. A man peeped out, satisfied himself that there really were sahib-log waiting at his gate, and then unfastened the chain, with apologies for his forgetfulness. Three men servants, armed with lathis, long sticks with heavy iron ferrules at both ends, stood behind him, and they all appeared to be exceedingly relieved when they heard that their midnight visitors only asked for water, milk, eggs, and chupatties, on the score that they were belated and had no food.

The zemindar civilly invited them to enter, but Frank as civilly declined, fearing that the smallness of their number, the absence of a retinue, and the cavalry accouterments of the horses, might arouse comment, if not suspicion.

Happily the owner of the house recognized Mr. Mayne, and then he bestirred himself. All they sought for, and more, was brought. Chairs were provided – rare luxuries in native dwellings at that date – and, this being a Mohammedan family, some excellent cooked meat was added to the feast. Before long Winifred was able to smile and say that she had not been so disgracefully hungry since she left school.

The zemindar courteously insisted that they should taste some mangoes on which he prided himself, and he also staged a quantity of

lichis

, a delicious fruit, closely resembling a plover’s egg in appearance, peculiar to India. Nor were the horses forgotten. They were watered and fed, and if by this time the nature of the cavalcade had been recognized, there was no change in the man’s hospitable demeanor.

Not for an instant did Frank’s watchful attitude relax. While Mr. Mayne and the zemindar discoursed on the disturbed state of the country he snatched the opportunity to exchange a few tender words with Winifred. But his eyes and ears were alert, and he was the first to hear the advent of a large body of horses along the main road.

He stood up instantly, blew out a lantern which was placed on the ground for the benefit of himself and the others, and said quietly:

“A regiment of cavalry is approaching. We do not wish to be seen by them. Let no man stir or show a light until they have gone.”

He had the military trick of putting an emphatic order in the fewest and simplest words. A threat was out of the question, after the manner in which the party had been received, but it is likely that each native present felt that his life would not be of great value if he attempted to draw the attention of the passers-by to the presence of Europeans at the door of that secluded zemindari.

The tramp of horses’ feet and the jingle of arms and trappings could now be distinguished plainly. At first Winifred feared that they were troops sent in pursuit of them by the Nana, and she whispered the question:

“Are they from Cawnpore, Frank?”

“No,” he answered, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I cannot see them, but their horses are walking, so they cannot have come our way. They are cavalry advancing from the direction of Lucknow.”

“Perhaps they are marching to the relief of Cawnpore?”

“Let us hope so. But we must not risk being seen.”

“Your words are despondent, dear. Do you think the whole native army is against us?”

“I scarcely know what to think, sweetheart. Things look black in so many directions. Once we are in Lucknow, and able to hear what has really happened elsewhere, we shall be better able to judge.”

The ghostly squadrons clanked past, unseen and unseeing. When the road was quiet again Winifred