and looked ugly, praying that no one would recognise Jassa with a patch over his eye, and his hair and five-day heard dyed orange. He had no such fears, but loafed about freely with the other idlers, gossiping; as he said, there's no concealment like open display.
I didn't see the touch made, but presently he ambled off, and I passed the halters to Ahmed and followed across the great square by the marble Barra Deree to the Palace gateway where I'd first seen Gardner months fore. There were no Palace Guards on the parapet now, only green-jacketed Muslim musketeers with great curling moustachioes, watchful as vultures, who scowled down at the crowds loitering in the square. There must have been several thousand gathered, and enough Sikhs in assorted Khalsa coats among them to set my innards churning; they did nothing but stare up at the walls, muttering among themselves, but you could feel the sullen hostility hanging over the place like a cloud.
'She ain't venturing abroad this weather, I reckon,' murmurs Jassa as I joined him in the lee of the gateway. 'Yep, there's a sizeable Republican majority right here. Our guide is right behind us, in the palki; when I give the nod, we'll tote it through the gate.'
I glanced over my shoulder; there was a palki, with its curtains drawn, set down by the wall, but no bearers in Night. So that was how we were to get past the gate guard, who were questioning all incomers; even under my posh-teen I could feel the sweat icy on my skin, and for the twentieth time I fingered the Cooper hidden in my sash—not that six shots would buy much elbow-room if we came adrift.
All of a sudden the mutter of the crowd grew to a babble and then to a roar; they were giving back to make way for a body of marching men advancing across the square from the Hazooree gate on the town side—Sikhs almost to a man, from half the divisions of the Khalsa, some of them with bandaged wounds and powder burns on their coats, but swinging along like Guardsmen behind their golden standard which, to my amazement, was borne by the white-whiskered old rissaldar-major I'd seen at Maian Mir, and again at Jeendan's durbar. And he was weeping, so help me, the tears running down to his beard, his eyes fixed ahead—and_ there behind him was Imam Shah, he of the ivory knives, bare-headed and with his arm in a sling. I was in behind Jassa double-quick, I can tell you.
The crowd were in a frenzy, waving and wailing and yelling: 'Khalsa-ji! Khalsa-ji!', showering them with petals as they marched by, but not a man so much as glanced aside; on they went, in column of fours, under the palace archway, with the mob surging behind up to the gate, taking up another cry: 'See Delhi! See Delhi, heroes of the Khalsa! Wa Guru-ji—to Delhi, to London!'
'Now, who the hell are they?' whispers Jassa. 'I guess maybe we got here just in time—I hope! Come on!'
We laid hold on the palki and shouldered our way through the mob to the gateway, where a Muslim subedar*(*Senior subaltern.) barred our way and stooped to question our passenger. I heard a woman's voice, quick and indistinct, and then he had waved us. on, and we carried the palki through the gate—and for all my dread at re-entering that fearsome den, I found myself remembering Stumps Harrowell, who'd been the chairman at Rugby when I was a boy, and how we'd run after him, whipping his enormous fat calves, while he could only rage helplessly between the shafts. You should see your tormentor now, Stumps, thinks I; hoist with his own palki, if you like.
Our passenger was calling directions to Jassa, who was between the front shafts, and presently we bore up in a little secluded court, and out she jumped, walking quickly to a low doorway which she unlocked, motioning us to follow. She led us up a long, dim passage, several flights of stairs, and more passages—and then I knew where we were: I had been conducted along this very way to Jeendan's rose boudoir, and I knew that pretty little rump stirring under the tight sari …
'Mangla!' says I, but she only beckoned us on, to a little ill-furnished room where I'd never been. Only when she had the door closed did she throw off her veil, and I looked again on that lovely Kashmiri face with its slanting gazelle eyes—but there was no insolence in them now, only fear.
'What's amiss?' snaps Jassa, scenting catastrophe.
'You saw those men of the Khalsa—the five hundred?' Her voice was steady enough, but quick with alarm. 'They are a deputation from Tej Singh's army—men of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. They have come to plead with the Rani for arms and food for the army, and for a leader 1o take Tej's place, so that we may still sweep the Jangi lat back to the gates of Delhi!' The way she spat it out, you would have wondered which side she was on; even traitors still have patriotic pride, you see. 'But they were not to have audience of the durbar until tomorrow—they have come before their time!'
'Well, what of it?' says I. 'She can fob them off—she's done it before!'
''They were not a beaten army then. They had not been led to defeat by Tej and Lal—or learned to mistrust Mai Jeendan herself. Now, when they come to durbar and find themselves ringed in by Muslim muskets, and call to her for aid which she cannot give them—what then? They are hungry men, and desperate.' She shrugged. 'You say she has wheedled them before—aye, but she is not given to Null words these days. She fears for Dalip and herself, she hates the Khalsa for Jawaheer's sake and the feeds her rage on wine. She's like to answer their mutinous clamour by blackening their faces for them—and who knows what they may do if she provokes them?'
Red murder, like as not—and then we'd have some usurper displacing Tej Singh and reviving the Khalsa for another slap at us. And here was I, back on the lion's lip, thanks to Gardner's idiot plots . should I throw in now, and bolt for India? Or could we still get Dalip out before all hell broke loose …?
'When's the durbar?'
'In two hours, perhaps.'
'Can Gardner bring the boy to us beforehand . . now?'
'Run in daylight?' cries Jassa. 'We'd never make it!'
Mangla shook her head. 'The Maharaja must be seen at the durbar. Who knows, Mai Jeendan may answer them well enough—and if she fails, they may still be quiet, with a thousand Muslims ready to fall on them at a word from Gurdana Khan. Then, when you have seen Mai Jeendan —'
'I don't need to see her—or anyone, except her blasted son! Tell Gardner —'
'Why, here's a change!' says she, with a flash of the old Mangla. 'You were eager enough once. Well, she wishes to see you, Flashman
'What the devil for?'
'Affairs of state, belike.' She gave her insolent slow smile. 'Meanwhile, you must wait; you are safe here. I shall tell Gurdana, and bring word when the durbar begins.'
And she slipped out, having added bewilderment to my fears. What could Jeendan want with me? I'd thought it rum at the time, her insistence that I should be Dalip's rescuer—to be sure, the kid liked me, but she'd as good as made me a condition of the plan, to Paddy Gough's ribald amusement. Coarse old brute. But it couldn't be that, at such a time … mind you, with partial females, you never can tell, especially when they're foxed.
But all this was small beer beside the menace of the Khalsa deputies. Could she hocus them again, by playing her charms and beguiling them with sweet words and fair promises?
Well, she didn't even try, as we saw when Mangla returned, after two hours of fretful waiting, to conduct us to that same spyhole from which I'd watched an earlier durbar. This was a different indaba*(*Mauer, affair.) altogether; then, there had been tumult and high spirits, laughter even, but we heard the angry clamour of the deputation and their shrill replies even before we reached the eyrie, when I am at a glance that this was an ugly business, with the Mother of All Sikhs on her highest horse and damn the Consequences.
The five hundred were in uproar in the main body of the peat hall before the durbar screen, but keeping their ranks, and it was easy to see why. They were wearing their tulwars, but round the walls of the chamber there must have been a full battalion of Muslim riflemen, with their pieces at the high port, primed and ready. Imam Shah was standing forward, addressing the screen, with the old ris-Naldar-major a pace behind; the golden standard lay before the throne on which little Dalip sat in lonely state, the tiny figure brave in crimson, and with the
Behind the purdah more Muslims lined the walls, and before them stood Gardner, in his tartan fig, the point of his naked sabre resting between his feet. Close by the screen Jeendan was pacing to and fro, pausing from time to time to listen, then resuming her furious sentry-go—for she was in a great rage, and well advanced in liquor, by the look of her. She had a cup in hand, and a flagon on the table, but for once she was modestly clad—as modest, anyway, as a voluptuous doll can he in a tight sari of purple silk, with her red hair unbound to her shoulders and that Delilah face unveiled.
