Read Online Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye - Free Book Online
Authors: M. M. Kaye
Tags: Romance
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Council of the Honourable The East India Company with a deed no less unjust. For not only the men, but the wives and children of those who had accepted her offer of safe conduct had been roped together and publicly butchered: children, women and men, in that order…
‘John Company’ had sown the wind. But many who must reap the whirlwind were as blameless and bewildered as Sita and Ash-Baba, blown helplessly before the gale like two small and insignificant sparrows on a wild day of storm.
3
It was October and the leaves were turning gold when they came to Gulkote, a tiny principality near the northern borders of the Punjab, where the plains lose themselves in the foothills that fringe the Pir Panjal.
They had come slowly, and for the most part on foot, for the donkey had been commandeered by a party of sepoys in the last days of May, and the hot weather had made travelling impossible except in the cool of the morning before the sun rose, or after it had set.
The sepoys had been men of the 38th Native Infantry, a regiment that had disintegrated on the day that the sowars of the 3rd Cavalry rode in from Meerut. They had been returning to their homes laden with loot, and were full of tales of the rising, among them the story of how the last of the
feringhis
in Delhi, the two men and fifty women and children who had been imprisoned in the King's palace, had met their end:
‘It is necessary to rid the land of all foreigners,’ explained the speaker, ‘but we of the army refused to turn butcher and slaughter women and babes who were half dead already from fear and hunger and many days of confinement in the dark. Some of the King's household also spoke out against it, saying that it was contrary to the tenets of the Muslim faith to slay women and children or other prisoners of war; but when Miza Majhli tried to save them, the mob cried for his blood, and in the end the King's servants took swords and slew them all.’
‘
All?’
faltered Sita. ‘But – but what harm would children have done? Could they not at least have spared the little ones?’
‘Bah! It is foolish to spare the young of a serpent,’ scoffed the sepoy; and Sita quaked anew for Ash-Baba, that embryo serpent playing happily in the dust only a yard or two away.
‘That is true,’ agreed one of his comrades, ‘for they grow up and breed more of their kind. It was well done to rid ourselves of so many who would in their turn have become thieves and oppressors.’ Whereupon he commandeered the donkey, and when Sita protested, struck her down with the butt of his musket while a second man picked up Ash, who had rushed to her defence like a small tiger-cat, and flung him into a patch of thorn-scrub. Ash had been severely scratched, and when he crawled out at last bruised, torn and sobbing, it was to find Sita lying unconscious by the roadside and sepoys and donkey already small in the distance.
That had been a black day. But at least the men had not taken Sita's bundle, and there was some consolation in that. Possibly it never occurred to them that the humble possessions of a ragged child and a lone woman could include anything worth taking, and they were not to know that at least half of the coins that Hilary had kept in a tin box under his bed were in a wash-leather bag at the bottom of the bundle. Sita had removed it as soon as she recovered consciousness and could think clearly again, and added it to the other half that she kept in a fold of cloth tied about her waist under her sari. It made a heavy and uncomfortable belt, but was probably safer there than in the bundle; and now that the donkey had been taken, she would in any case have to carry both.
The theft of the donkey had been a grievous blow; as much on sentimental grounds as practical ones, for Ash had grown fond of the little animal and mourned its loss long after even the worst of the scratches had healed and been forgotten. But that incident, and the sepoy's stories, served to
‘John Company’ had sown the wind. But many who must reap the whirlwind were as blameless and bewildered as Sita and Ash-Baba, blown helplessly before the gale like two small and insignificant sparrows on a wild day of storm.
3
It was October and the leaves were turning gold when they came to Gulkote, a tiny principality near the northern borders of the Punjab, where the plains lose themselves in the foothills that fringe the Pir Panjal.
They had come slowly, and for the most part on foot, for the donkey had been commandeered by a party of sepoys in the last days of May, and the hot weather had made travelling impossible except in the cool of the morning before the sun rose, or after it had set.
The sepoys had been men of the 38th Native Infantry, a regiment that had disintegrated on the day that the sowars of the 3rd Cavalry rode in from Meerut. They had been returning to their homes laden with loot, and were full of tales of the rising, among them the story of how the last of the
feringhis
in Delhi, the two men and fifty women and children who had been imprisoned in the King's palace, had met their end:
‘It is necessary to rid the land of all foreigners,’ explained the speaker, ‘but we of the army refused to turn butcher and slaughter women and babes who were half dead already from fear and hunger and many days of confinement in the dark. Some of the King's household also spoke out against it, saying that it was contrary to the tenets of the Muslim faith to slay women and children or other prisoners of war; but when Miza Majhli tried to save them, the mob cried for his blood, and in the end the King's servants took swords and slew them all.’
‘
All?’
faltered Sita. ‘But – but what harm would children have done? Could they not at least have spared the little ones?’
‘Bah! It is foolish to spare the young of a serpent,’ scoffed the sepoy; and Sita quaked anew for Ash-Baba, that embryo serpent playing happily in the dust only a yard or two away.
‘That is true,’ agreed one of his comrades, ‘for they grow up and breed more of their kind. It was well done to rid ourselves of so many who would in their turn have become thieves and oppressors.’ Whereupon he commandeered the donkey, and when Sita protested, struck her down with the butt of his musket while a second man picked up Ash, who had rushed to her defence like a small tiger-cat, and flung him into a patch of thorn-scrub. Ash had been severely scratched, and when he crawled out at last bruised, torn and sobbing, it was to find Sita lying unconscious by the roadside and sepoys and donkey already small in the distance.
That had been a black day. But at least the men had not taken Sita's bundle, and there was some consolation in that. Possibly it never occurred to them that the humble possessions of a ragged child and a lone woman could include anything worth taking, and they were not to know that at least half of the coins that Hilary had kept in a tin box under his bed were in a wash-leather bag at the bottom of the bundle. Sita had removed it as soon as she recovered consciousness and could think clearly again, and added it to the other half that she kept in a fold of cloth tied about her waist under her sari. It made a heavy and uncomfortable belt, but was probably safer there than in the bundle; and now that the donkey had been taken, she would in any case have to carry both.
The theft of the donkey had been a grievous blow; as much on sentimental grounds as practical ones, for Ash had grown fond of the little animal and mourned its loss long after even the worst of the scratches had healed and been forgotten. But that incident, and the sepoy's stories, served to
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