to grave evils.) by God!' And then they changed into a wrinkled old native woman and a scrawny nigger with a white moustache; she was holding a chatti*(*Pot, drinking cup.) to my mouth — it felt hard and cold, but it became suddenly soft and warm, and the chatti was Mrs Leslie's lips against mine, and what was running into my mouth wasn't water, but blood, and I screamed silently while all the grinning faces whirled round me, and the whole world was burning while a voice intoned: 'Cartridge is brought to the left hand with right elbow raised' … and then the old man and woman were there again, peering anxiously down at me while I slipped into black unconsciousness.
It was in their hut that I finally came to myself, with a half-healed wound on my temple, having lost heaven knows how much blood and weight, verminous and stinking and weak as a kitten — but with my head just clear enough to remember what had happened. Unfortunately, it wasn't to prove quite so clear about thinking ahead.
I've since calculated that I lay ill and delirious in their hovel for nearly three weeks, perhaps longer. They didn't seem to know — apart from being the lowest kind of creatures, they were scared stiff of me, and it wasn't until I'd prevailed on them to fetch someone from a nearby village that I could get any notion of what was happening. They finally drummed up an ancient pensioner, who shied off as soon as he saw me — my cavalry coat and gear, and my filthy appearance must have marked me as a mutineer par excellence — but before he could get out of the door I had soothed him with my revolver, held in a shaky hand, and in no time he was crouching beside my charpoy, babbling like the man from Reuters, while the rest of his village peeped through cracks in the walls, shivering.
Delhi had fallen — he had been there, and there had been a terrible slaughter of sahibs, and all their folk. The King of Delhi had been proclaimed and now ruled all India. It had been the same everywhere — Meerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri (all of which were within a hundred miles or so), the splendid sepoys had triumphed all along the line, and soon every peasant in the land would receive a rupee and a new chicken. (Sensation.) The sahibs had tried to fall treacherously on the native soldiers at Agra, Cawnpore and Lucknow; but there was no doubt that these places would succumb also — two regiments of mutineers had passed through his own village last night, with cannon, to assist in the overthrow of Agra — everywhere there were dead sahibs, obviously there would soon be none left in the world. Bombay had risen, Afghan fighters were pouring in from the north, a great Muslim jihad had been proclaimed, fort after fort of the hated gora-log was going down, with fearful slaughter. Doubtless I had already borne my part? — excellent, I would certainly be rewarded with a nawab's throne and treasure and flocks of amorous women. What less did I deserve? 3rd Cavalry, was I not? Doughty fighters — he had been in the Bombay Sappers, himself, thirty-one years' service, and not so much as a naik's stripes to swell his miserable pinshun — aieee, it was time the mean, corrupt and obscene Sirkar was swept away …
Some of his news would be exaggerated bosh, of course, but I couldn't judge how much, and I didn't doubt his information about the local mutinies (which proved accurate enough, by the way: half the stations between Meerut and Cawnpore had been overrun by this time). Perhaps I was too ready to swallow his gammon about Afghan invasion and Bombay being in flames — but remember, I'd seen the stark, staring impossible happen at Meerut — after that, anything was credible. After all, there was only one British soldier in India for every fifty sepoys, to say nothing of banditti, frontiersmen, dacoits, bazaar ruffians and the like — dear God, if the thing spread there wasn't an earthly damned reason why they shouldn't swallow every British garrison, cantonment and residency from Khyber to Coromandel. And it would spread — I didn't doubt it, as I sat numb and shaking on my charpai.
Coward's reasoning, if you like, but I don't know any other kind, thank heaven; at least it prepares you for the worst. And there couldn't be much worse than my present situation, plumb in the eye of the storm — damnation, of all the places to hide in, what malign fate had taken me to Meerut? And how to get away? — my native disguise was sound enough, but I couldn't skulk round India forever as a footloose nigger. I'd have to fmd a British garrison — a large, safe one … Cawnpore? Not by a mile — the whole Ganges valley seemed to be ablaze. North wasn't any good, Delhi was gone and Agra on the brink … South? Gwalior? Jhansi? Indore? I found myself chattering the names aloud, and repeating one over and over —'Jhansi, Jhansi!'
Now, you must remember I was in my normal state of great pusillanimity, and half-barmy to boot, as a result of shock and the clout I'd taken. Otherwise I'd never have dreamed of Jhansi, two hundred and fifty miles away — but Ilderim was at Jhansi, and if there was one thing certain in this dreadful world, it was that he'd keep his tryst, and would either wait for me at Bull Temple as he'd promised, or leave word. And Jhansi must be safe — dammit, I'd spent weeks with its ruler, in civilised discussion and hectic banging; she was a lovely, wonderful girl, and would have her state well in hand, surely? Yes, Jhansi — it was madness, and I know it now, but in my weak, feverish state it seemed the only course at the time.
So south I went, talking to myself most of the time, and shying away from everyone and everything except the meanest villages, where I put in for provisions; I didn't stand on ceremony, but just lurched in snarling and brandishing my Colt, kicking the cowed inhabitants aside, and lifting whatever I fancied — I've never been more grateful for my English public school upbringing than I was then. Whether I was unlucky or not I don't know, but as I worked my way south past Khurjah and Hathras and Firozabad, over the river and down past Gohad to the Jhansi border, everything I saw confirmed my worst fears. I must have skulked in the brush a dozen times to avoid bands of sepoys — one of 'em a full regiment, blow me, with colours and band tootling away, but plainly mutineers from the din they made and the slovenly way they marched. I know now that there were British-held towns and stations along the way, and even bands of our cavalry scouring the country, but I never ran across them. What I did see was a sickening trail of death — burned-out bungalows, looted villages, bodies all swollen up and half-eaten by vultures and jackals. I remember one little garden, beside a pretty house, and three skeletons among the flowers — picked clean by ants, I daresay. Two were full-grown, and one was a baby. Now and then I would see smoke on the horizon, or over the trees, and crowds of villagers fleeing with their miserable belongings — it was like the end of the world to me, then, and if you'd known India you'd have thought the same — imagine it in Kent or Hampshire, for that's how it seemed to us.
Fortunately, thanks to my curiously light-headed condition, my recollections of that wandering ride are not too clear; it wasn't until the very morning that I came down out of the low hills to Jhansi city, and saw the distant fort-crowned rock above the town, that my mind seemed to give a little snap — I remember sitting my pony, with my brain clearing, understanding what I'd done, and why I was here, breaking out in a sweat at my own temerity, and then realising that I'd perhaps done the wise thing, after all. It all looked peaceful enough, although I was on the wrong side of the city to see the British cantonment; I decided to lie up during the afternoon, and then slip into Bull Temple, which was not far from the Jokan Bagh, a garden of little beehive temples not far outside the town. If Ilderim's messenger wasn't there by. sundown, I'd scout the cantonment, and if all was well I'd ride in and report myself to Skene.
The sun was just slipping away and the shadows lengthening when I skirted the woods where Lakshmibai's pavilion lay — who knows, thinks I, perhaps we'll dance another Haymarket hornpipe before long — and came down to Bull Temple just after dusk. I didn't see a soul as I came, but I was cheered by the sound of a bugle-call in the distance, and I was pressing ahead more boldly up towards the temple ruin when someone clicked his tongue in the shadows, and I reined up sharply.
'Who goes there?' says I, fingering the Colt, and a man lounged out, spreading his hands to show they were empty. He was a Pathan, skull-cap and pyjamys and all, and as he came to my horse's head I recognised the sowar who'd given me his gear and pony when I'd left Jhansi — Rafik Tamwar.
'Flashman husoor,' says he, softly. 'Ilderim said you would come.' And without another word he jerked his thumb towards the temple itself, put his hands to his mouth, and hooted softly like an owl; there was an answering hoot from the ruins, and Tamwar nodded to me to go ahead.
'Ilderim is yonder,' says he, and before I could ask him what the devil it meant, he had dissolved into the shadows and I was staring uneasily across the tangle of weeds and broken masonry that marked the old temple garden; there was a glare of fire-light from the doorway in the half-fallen shell of the dome, and a man was standing waiting — even at that distance I knew it was Ilderim Khan, and a moment later I was face to bearded grinning face with him, shaking with very relief as his one sound arm clasped me round the shoulders — the other was bound up in a sling — and he was chuckling in his throat and growling that I must have a pact with Shaitan since I was alive to keep the rendezvous.
'For we have heard of Meerut,' says he, as he drew me in to the fire, and the half-dozen sowars crouched round it made space for us. 'And Delhi, Aligarh and the rest —'
'But what the blazes are you doing here?' says I. 'Since when have irregular cavalry taken to bivouacking in
