The Great Mogul

CHAPTER XVIII

But there were matters of graver import afoot than the Countess’s fainting fit. Already the conspirators in the summer-house, alarmed by the commotion, must be devising means to protect themselves, and the Emperor, ensconced in a hiding-place after the fashion invented by Dionysius of Syracuse, was probably doubting the wisdom of his Haroun-al-Raschid escapade. For Roger, bursting through the hostile cordons like an infuriated blue-bottle fly caught in the outer strands of a spider’s web, had applied a premature spark to a gunpowder train. The silence of the night was jarred into fierce uproar. The imperial troops, thinking the revolt had broken out before its appointed hour, were hurriedly closing in around the rebels. The latter, strenuously opposing Sainton’s passage up the hill leading to the Garden of Heart’s Delight, communicated a panic for action, which is the next worst thing to a flight, to those of their comrades who knew not what was happening. In a word, the left bank of the Jumna was ablaze, and sharp encounters occurred wherever the Emperor’s men met those who fought for his would-be supplanter, Khusrow. At the gate Devi Pershad and the Rajputs, manfully aided by the house servants, were even then resisting the efforts of the rebels previously hidden in the wood to break open the door and go to the aid of their leaders within. Indeed, Roger had barely ceased speaking, before a sowar, one of his own small escort, ran in and breathlessly announced the desperate nature of the attack on the gateway.

Sainton, of course, knew nothing of the real cause of all this riot. Nor was there time to tell him. Mowbray grasped the excited soldier.

“Canst hoot like an owl?” he cried.

“Aye, sahib, that can I,” was the reply, for the man guessed the portent of the question.

“Come, then, Roger! Thou knowest the summer-house? Smite any man who leaves it! Nur Mahal, bide you here till I return! Fra Pietro, bolt the doors and open only to me or Roger!”

“One word, brother, ere thou goest,” cried the friar in English. “A chosen ruler, be he Christian or heathen, is the Lord’s anointed. ‘Curse not the King, no, not in thy thought.’”

Walter, hurrying forth, darted a single glance at the speaker. Somehow, the Franciscan’s words gave ordered sequence to a project which flitted vaguely through his mind as he listened to Nur Mahal’s thrilling recital. It seemed to him that this beautiful woman, “who offered herself twice to no man,” harbored a certain spite against Jahangir because of the treatment he had meted out to her. Once she had vaguely hinted at bygones as between Mowbray and herself; otherwise her utterances were those of unsated and insatiable ambition, and the style of her raiment alone showed that she had quitted the palace that night prepared to fill the stage in whatsoever part fortune allotted her.

Now the two Englishmen were in the garden, running towards the summer-house, which, it will be remembered, stood on an island in the midst of a small lake, and was approached by four narrow causeways, each at right angles with its neighbors. There never was a darker night. It was barely possible to distinguish the tops of the trees against the sky; beneath, they passed through a blackness so dense that they could not see each other.

Under such conditions rapid progress was impossible. Mowbray called a halt, and bade the Rajput use his skill in imitating owls. Thrice the long-drawn ululu vibrated in the scent-laden atmosphere; at the third screech came an answering hoot, lanterns twinkled of a sudden at the farther end of the lawn, and Jai Singh, with his rabble of swashbucklers, perched expectantly on the wall, tumbled pell-mell into the garden.

“We come, sahib!” they heard his exultant cry. “Every man carries a light and wears a black turban. Spare none other!”

“Ecod!” said Roger, “that is good talking. Jai Singh is thin in the ribs, but he hath the liver of a bull. Yet there seemeth no urgence for killing. What is toward, Walter? ‘Smite,’ say you. ‘Spare not,’ yelps Jai Singh. Nur Mahal shoots lightning from her eyes. Even the good friar points a moral with a text on cursing the king. Who hath cursed him? Whose throat is to be cut? My soul, there’s battle in the very air!”

Sainton was appealing to unheeding ears. The baraduri, being a roofed entablature supported on slight columns, became vaguely silhouetted against the dim glow of the advancing lantern-bearers. Walter saw several armed men rushing towards the house along the nearest chaussée. It went against the grain to strike any man who came to him trustingly, no matter what the ultimate intent, and among the foremost he thought he recognized Raja Man Singh.

“Back, there!” he shouted. “We are for Jahangir! Back to your covert and lay down your arms!”

There could be no mistaking his meaning. The conspirators, dumbfounded by the discovery that he whom they reckoned an ally was a declared foe, stopped, hesitated, and then broke, left and right.

“They must not escape!” said Mowbray to his companion. “After them, Jai Singh!” he vociferated to the Rajput, and forthwith there was a scurry in which several fell. Nevertheless, two, at least, got away through the trees and scaled the wall. Raja Man Singh remained, gasping his life out, but he of Bikanir and one other reached the reinforcements outside.

Hastily despatching Jai Singh and his followers to defend the main gate, Mowbray retained only two men of his own little troop. Equipping them with lanterns, he led Roger to the summer-house and cried in a loud voice: —

“Come forth, Jahangir!”

There was no answer. The hollow roof, exquisitely painted with frescoes representing forest life, echoed the command, and the slight scrutiny rendered possible by the weak light of the lamps gave force to Roger’s query: —

“Dost think to find him, like Mahmoud’s coffin, slung ’twixt heaven and earth, Walter?”

But Nur Mahal was to be trusted beyond the credence of eyes alone. Unless the Emperor had flown, or changed his mind at the latest moment, he was surely there, for the doorkeeper said two strangers had passed by the watchword “Safed-Kira.” And the vital need of hurry made stern measures necessary.

“Jahangir!” cried Mowbray again, “I know that thou art here, thou and thy pimp, Ibrahim. Nur Mahal hath sent us to save thy life, and thy throne if need be. Descend, therefore, else Sainton-sahib shall pull thee down together with thy lurking-place.”

A moment’s pause brought only the racket of desultory firing in the roadway, the thuds of a battering ram against the iron-studded door, and the yells of assailants and defenders as the high boundary wall was sought to be carried by escalade, for the Maharaja of Bikanir, now that his desperate scheme was unmasked, urged his adherents ere they marched to sack the palace to extirpate the brood of vipers in the Garden of Heart’s Delight.

“Roger,” said Walter, calmly, resolved to be sure of his quarry, “try thy strength on a pillar!”

The summer-house, an elegant hexagon, had a carved pillar at each angle. Sainton placed his foot against one, gave a mighty push, and the stones yielded. Some fell with a clatter onto the mosaic pavement, others splashed in the water of the lake.

“Hold!” came a muffled cry, “I come!”

A fine creeper had entwined its stout tendrils round three of the pillars. In one of these, cunningly hidden by the vine, were small holdfasts, by which an active man might climb to the roof. Once there, a section of the blue enameled tiles slid back and gave access to a small apartment with a grille floor, the interstices being invisible from beneath owing to the painted foliage.

Jahangir, followed by Ibrahim, made an undignified descent. Obviously, he feared a sword thrust as he neared the ground. Yet he was no coward. Disdaining to jump he came down slowly, and faced Mowbray without laying hand on the pistol or jeweled tulwar he carried. If treachery were intended he could not guard against it, and he was too proud to exhibit his secret thought by useless action.

“Have I heard aright?” he asked, with well-feigned coolness. “Did you say that Nur Mahal had sent you?”

“Yes. How else should I, a stranger, know of your retreat?”

“And neither you nor she are in league with my enemies?”

“Some of them lie in the garden. You hear the others without. Are you man or king enough to help us in repelling them?”

Jahangir bowed his head.

“God is great,” he said, as though in self-communion. “Never was mortal more deceived than I have been.”

Ibrahim, Chief Eunuch, somewhat restored from the rare fright of the trembling roof, thought it high time to trim his sails to the new wind.

“I always told your Majesty,” he began; but Jahangir, for answer, smote him in the face with his clenched fist so heavily that he fell into the lake and lay there insensible. He would have been drowned had not a Rajput pulled him out and held him by the heels until a good deal of water came from his mouth and a good many gold pieces from a tuck in his cummerbund.

Mowbray, whose judgment was cooler and truer in the frenzy of a fight than when a woman’s eyes assailed him, did not forget that where Jai Singh had introduced his hirelings others might follow. Nevertheless, with the inadequate force available, it was impossible to conduct an effective defense of a square enclosure containing many acres. It was above all else essential to resist the main assault. The Eastern fighting man is moved to the madness of heroism by success, and driven to despair by failure. The gateway must not be carried.

He detailed sentries, therefore, to report any hostile move from the flanks or rear, in which case he would fall back on the house, which occupied the exact center of the garden. Then he and the others hastened to the gate.

They were not a moment too soon. A huge balk of timber, carried up from the bridge and swung by fifty men against the sturdy door, smashed the panels and dislodged the hinges. Through the gap poured a torrent of assailants, all well armed, and the struggle must have resulted in instant victory for the rebels had not Roger faced them.

There was light in plenty. Many carried torches, whilst masses of tow soaked in oil had been placed on the ground to enable the archers and matchlockmen to shoot. Luckily the onward rush prevented anything like a volley being fired in that narrow space, or the Emperor and his English supporters must certainly have been hit. As it was, the giant had a fair field, steel against steel, and one man against a hundred.

When Roger was busy there was no standing-room for friends by his side or foes in front. His tremendous strength was no less astounding than his tigerish agility. His long sword whirled in lightning circles, he sprang back, forth, and sideways with incredible ease, and such was the area he covered, combined with a quick eye to discern and a supple wrist to disconcert every adventurous cut or thrust aimed at him, that, whilst those outside were yelling to the van to press forward, the unlucky wights of the front rank were making a new rampart of their bodies.

Walter found a corner where Sainton’s sickle did not reach, and Jahangir, fired to emulation, joined him. The three practically held the gate, because Jai Singh, with his horde of freebooters, did not quickly regain his self-possession after the stupefying discovery that the Emperor, whom he was actively fighting against, was laying on with a will in behalf of the Englishman.

Others, too, learned the bewildering fact that here was Jahangir himself in the very hatching ground of the conspiracy. The Maharaja of Bikanir saw him, and having missed him twice with a pistol, adopted a new tactic which might easily have involved the monarch and the Englishmen in common ruin. Awaiting the rebel leader, to carry him to the fort, was a war elephant, a huge brute, well protected by iron plates, thick knobs of brass, and chain armor, penetrable by no missile short of a cannon-ball. The animal was trained to charge any one or anything at the bidding of its mahout, and the Maharaja, mounting the howdah with some of his officers, bade the driver launch the elephant at full speed through the gate.

Among the many physical advantages Roger held over other men not the least was his height. While dealing with the present danger he could see that which threatened farther afield, and now, above the heads of the combatants, he caught sight of the great moving mass of shining panoply. Such a thunderbolt would rend its way through all opposition. Swords and lances were powerless against it, but there lay on the ground, wrenched from its sockets by the battering-ram, the heavy iron bar which the big Yorkshireman had used so effectively on the night that Sher Afghán carried off his unwilling bride.

None of the others knew of the approaching peril. Roger turned to Jai Singh.

“Come on, Don Whiskerando!” he shouted. “I thought thou hadst better stomach for a fray!”

Though he spoke English, his look was enough. The old Rajput awoke from his trance and rushed forward manfully. His levies followed, the rebels yielded a few feet, and Roger secured breathing space. He sheathed his reeking sword, picked up the iron bar, and stood on the left of the gateway, balancing the implement over his right shoulder and bracing his feet, set wide apart, firmly against the ground.

A fiercer yell, a stampede of both parties, announced the oncoming of the new danger. Mowbray and Jahangir thought that this was the end until they saw Roger, not smiling now but frowning, whirl the bar lightly as a preliminary to the greatest feat he ever performed. For the story lives yet amidst the glorious ruins of the Mogul Empire how the Man-Elephant killed the elephant. Trumpeting loudly, rushing through the swaying mass of human beings as a whale cleaves water, the immense brute seemed to enjoy the sensation it created. As it entered the gate, with trunk uplifted, the bar crashed across its knees. The elephant stumbled and fell. Again the iron flail whistled in the air, this time striking the brass-studded boss on the beast’s wide forehead. The thick metal disks shivered into fragments, and the monster, with fractured skull, lurched over heavily on its side, throwing the Maharaja of Bikanir and his lieutenants to the ground, where they died quickly at the hands of those nearest to them.

A great shout went up, a shout of terror and wonder. Men ran, throwing away their arms and shrieking incoherent appeals, whether to Allah or Khuda, for protection. It was recorded that some went mad, some died from fright, and many dropped from exhaustion miles away from Dilkusha and its magic. For never before had one man met a full-grown fighting elephant face to face in single combat and killed it. Such deeds were told of lions and tigers, of many-antlered deer and massive bulls, but never of the elephant, which, in the plenitude of its majestic strength, can drag four score men in triumph, let them tug their best at a rope.

“Shabash, hathi!” cried Jahangir. “By the soul of my father, Akbar, if I am spared to-night those two strokes shall be writ in history and recorded in stone!”

“’Twill please me better if they remain in your Majesty’s memory,” was Sainton’s gruff answer. Truth to tell, his mighty effort had shaken him. In that last almost superhuman blow he had surpassed himself. His muscles still twitched from the tension, and he experienced a curious sympathy for the magnificent creature whose dying convulsions alone betokened the abundant life with which it was endowed.

He leaned wearily on the long bar. The slaying of the elephant was the culmination of a day’s toil such as no other man in India could have endured, for many a stout warrior had fallen under his sword ere he carried the Countess di Cabota into the Garden of Heart’s Delight.

But the Emperor, not to be rebuffed thus curtly, seized him by the arm.

“Harken, friend,” said he, “one lie will poison a river of truth. They told me ’twas thy intent to tumble my palace about my ears. Tomb of the Prophet, what will not a man believe when he lends his wits to women and wine? Never was king more beholden to stranger than I to thee and thy friend; canst thou not credit my faith when I say that no recompense you ask shall be too great for me to give?”

Sainton turned and clapped the Emperor on the shoulder.

“I have oft wondered,” he cried, “how so good a soldier could be a bad king. Now I see ’twas a passing fit, which, mayhap, like certain distempers, leaves thee wholesomer.”

And that was how Jahangir and Roger began a comradeship which was never marred nor forgotten while either lived.

Mowbray, though delighted that Sainton’s rough diplomacy had won the Emperor so thoroughly, nevertheless kept a sharp lookout for any recrudescence of the fight. But the back of the revolt was broken. He who escaped with the Maharaja of Bikanir, riding post-haste for fresh troops, was captured by the imperial forces, and a strong contingent of mounted men arriving at Dilkusha relieved the little garrison of further concern. Jahangir despatched several officers with instructions, the exact significance of which Walter failed to grasp. He knew it was hopeless to expect clemency for those who fomented the disorders. In the East, and indeed elsewhere, rulers had a habit, not wholly lost to-day, of repressing such outbreaks with merciless severity.

The Emperor quickly completed his arrangements. Then he drew Walter aside.

“You spoke of Nur Mahal. She is here, I know. What was her errand?” he asked.

“To warn me of the plot of which I was the unconscious figurehead,” was the ready answer.

“Her action is the chief surprise of a night of marvels,” said Jahangir, thoughtfully. “No matter how greatly I was misled by others, I vow she was candid. Never did woman belittle a man as Nur Mahal belittled me. She said much that was true, and a good deal that was false. But her spleen was manifest. Had my head rolled at her feet she would have kicked it. Why, then, should she risk her life to save me?”

“You must ask her that yourself, your Majesty.”

There was no other way. It was out of the question that Walter should dispel Jahangir’s doubts by hinting a very different motive for Nur Mahal’s visit to Dilkusha. Come what might he had dissipated in her mind the mirage of a dynastic struggle in which he would participate as her husband. The mere fact that he had so completely thrown in his lot with the Emperor would prove to her, if proof were needed, that the dream of those memorable days which followed their flight from Agra might never be renewed. What would she do? What manner of greeting would she give Jahangir? Who could tell? Once before, when expected to marry the Emperor, she reviled him. Not half an hour ago she said Jahangir must die before dawn. He was not dead, but very much alive, and more firmly seated on his throne than at any time since his accession. What would she say? Mowbray was on thorns as he walked with the Emperor and Roger to the house.