On the Face of the Waters: A Tale of the Mutiny. Flora Annie Webster Steel
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disregard these ridiculous lies. Of course everyone--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 grappling with it, just as we are grappling, quietly, with the general distrust. That was a most mischievous paragraph, by the way, in the Christian Observer, jubilant over the alarm created by those first widow remarriages 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 Family. 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 Sheeah----"
"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. "Partially; 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 wife 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----"
The military magnate, having a sense of humor, smiled to himself. "Perfectly," he replied, "and I'm inclined to think that perhaps there is something to be said for a greater laxity." In his turn he glanced at the mantelpiece, 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 regulars." He had seen a rush of Ghâzees once and the memory 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 accessions 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 children 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 governed 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 Haileybury! I only hope competition will do as well, but I doubt it; these new fellows can never have the old esprit 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 krani's (lit. low-caste English) son will do, if he has learned enough.' I tried to explain--" Here a red-coated orderly entering with a card, he broke off into angry inquiries why he was being disturbed contrary to orders.
"The sahib bade me bring it," replied the man, as if that were sufficient excuse, and his master, looking at the card, tossed it over the table to the soldier, who exclaimed: "Talk of the devil! He may as well come in, if you don't mind."
So James Greyman was ushered in, and remained standing between the civilian and the soldier; for it is not given to all to have the fine perceptions of the native. The orderly had unhesitatingly classed the visitor as a "gentleman to be obeyed"; but the Political Department knew him only as a reliable source of information.
"Well, Greyman! Have you brought any more news?" asked the civilian, in a tone intended to impress the Military Department with the fact that here was one grapnel out of the many which were being employed in bringing truth to the surface and securing safety. But the soldier, after one brief look at the newcomer, sat up and squared his own shoulders a bit.
"That depends, sir," replied James Greyman quietly, "whether it pays me to bring it or not. I told you last month that I could not undertake any more work, because I was leaving India. My plans have changed; and to be frank, I am rather hard up. If you could give me regular employment I should be glad of it." He spoke with the utmost deliberation, but the incisive finality of every word, taking his hearers unprepared, gave an impression of hurry and left the civilian breathless. James Greyman, however, having said what he had come to say, said no more. During the past week he had had plenty of time to make up his mind, or rather to find out that it was made up. For he recognized frankly that he was acting more on impulse than reason. After he had buried poor little Zora away in accordance with the customs of her people, and paid his racing bets and general liabilities,--to do which he had found it necessary to sell most things, including the very horse he had matched against Major Erlton's,--he had suddenly found out, rather to his own surprise, that the idea of starting again on the old lines was utterly distasteful to him. In a lesser degree this second loss of his future and severing of ties in the past had had the same effect upon him as the previous one. It had left him reckless, disposed to defy all he had lost, and prove himself superior to ill-luck. Then being, by right of his Celtic birth, imaginative, in a way superstitious, he had again and again found himself thrown back, as it were, upon Kate Erlton's appeal for that chance, to bring which the Spirit might be, even now, moving on the waters. It was that, that only, with its swift touch on his own certainty that a storm was brewing, which had made him yield his point; which had forced him into yielding by an unreasoning assent to her suggestion that it might bring a chance of atonement with it. And now, in calm deliberation, he confessed that he might find his chance in it also; a better chance, maybe, than he would have had in England. His only one, at any rate, for some time to come. Those gray-blue northern eyes with the glint of steel in them had, by a few words, changed the current of his life. The truth was unpalatable, but as usual he did not attempt to deny it. He simply cast round for the best course in which to flow toward that tide in the affairs of men which he hoped to take at its flood. Political employment--briefly, spy's work--seemed as good as any for the present.
"Regular employment," echoed the civilian, recovering from his sense of hurry. "You mean, I presume, as a news-writer."
"As a spy, sir," interrupted James Greyman.
The political light disregarded the suggestion. "Your acquirements, of course, would be suitable enough; but I fear there are no native courts without one. And the situation hardly calls for excess expenditure. But of course, any isolated douceur----"
His hearer smiled. "Call it payment, sir. But I think you must find job-work in secret intelligence rather expensive. It produces such a crop of mare's-nests; at least so I have found."
The suspicion of equality in the remark made the official mount his high horse, deftly.
"Really, we have so many reliable sources of information, Mr. Greyman," he began, laying his hand as if casually on the papers before him. The action was followed by James Greyman's keen eyes.
"You have the proclamation there, I see," he said cheerfully. "I thought it could not be much longer before the police or someone else became aware of its existence. The Moulvie himself was here about a week ago."
"The Moulvie--what Moulvie?" asked the military magnate eagerly. The civilian, however, frowned. If confidential work were to be carried out on those lines, something, even if it were only ignorance, must be found out.
"The Moulvie of Fyzabad--" began James Greyman.
"And who--?"
"My dear sir," interrupted the other pettishly. "We