Читать книгу A Desert Bride - Hume Nisbet - Страница 10

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Ronald MacIvor was mightily scared when he first went on the stage, even although the audience was such an indulgent one, and his own features were masked under a substantial coating of blackened cork and butter; but he soon recovered his presence of mind, for was he not a soldier's son, and was not the daring and larky Jack beside him to support him.

Therefore, crushing down the shivering which had fastened upon his limbs, and controlling the throbbing of his heart, he plunged desperately into his part, and very quickly forgot the sea of faces in front of him in the enjoyment of the songs first, and the intoxication of the applause afterwards.

Mrs Bangles did not sing much, for her voice had long since lost its freshness; but she was a very lively dancer, and good at burlesque business, and therefore for the time she became quite a lioness amongst the very young subs, who forced their way behind the scenes, and escorted her about the town the following days, proud to be seen in her company, and also delighted to offer her presents of gloves and other nick-nacks, which she was as pleased to accept. Poor lady, she had to do her toilet very early in the morning during those three harvest days, and work hard also at the selling of tickets from sunrise to sunset, so no wonder that she yawned sometimes while she was dressing in the evenings.

Jack and Ronald went about the town, however, and enjoyed themselves very much during the day; in fact, theatrical life, now that rehearsal was over, seemed to be a constant life of enjoyment to Ronald, the only difference between it and other pleasures being that, as a theatrical, one got paid for playing, while outside one had to pay for playing; that, of course, was the early stage of the life which had made Mrs Bangles so old and reckless, and fortunately there were no harsh critics in Allahabad to poison the pleasure. Something, however, worse than critics was coming to cure him of this budding fancy for theatrical life.

On the night of the 6th they were to give a charitable performance in the schoolroom of one of the churches, and they were just finishing dressing in the side-room, and almost ready to go on the stage, when the clergyman and half a dozen of the audience rushed in with white faces, and announced that the natives had risen, and were murdering all the Europeans they could meet in the streets, and that they must get at once to some more secure place for shelter.

Mrs Bangles was a brave woman, if little, and prompt at emergencies.

"Quick, boys, wash off that burnt cork, and make up with umber instead," she cried out, as soon as she heard the tidings. "Fortunately I have our native rigs-out here in my bag. I'll not keep you five minutes, gentlemen."

Saying which, without heeding her audience, the little woman began with lightning speed to transform herself from a golden-haired Cupid into a brown-skinned native, the boys following her example with equal promptitude.

The clergyman turned his head aside with a little cough while the change was being made, and, when next he looked, three native boys of the poorer class stood before him, the smallest of the three hard at work with his sponge and walnut dye touching up the places on arms, legs and necks which had been missed.

"Yih t-heek hy Sahib?" (Is this right, sir?) asked the small Hindoo, with a salam to the clergyman.

"Wonderful!" murmured that astonished gentleman.

"Ha! ha! now we can look after ourselves in the crowd, and perhaps help you also. We shall go outside and see if we can find a way. First let me go on the stage and speak to the audience."

With a bound the disguised Mrs Bangles appeared on the stage, and held up her hand to the terrified people, who were now crouching in their seats, thinking the rebels had got in by the back.

"Listen to me, friends; there will be no performance to-night, but, instead, I wish you all to come up to the stage and wait here till I find a way out for you to your own homes; while, for your own safety, meanwhile, the lights are going to be put out, so that the enemy may not be attracted to this hall. Do you understand me? I am Mrs Bangles."

The audience proved that they did understand, by leaving their seats and rushing pell-mell towards where she stood; that is, the women portion did so, while the men were following more leisurely.

"Put out the lights before you leave the hall, gentlemen, and lock the doors," called out that stage-trained voice calmly.

Fortunately the doors had been seen to at the first alarm, so that the quenching of the lights did not occupy much time; and very soon the company were crowding the platform and the dressing-room, one lamp only illuminating them dimly, as they waited on further orders from this little leader.

"Didn't I tell you I had good reason to be proud of my mother, Ronald?" whispered Jack to his friend, as they stood beside the third-rate actress, burlesque and comedy, now taking the leading part in this tragedy, as if to the manner born.

"She is real," answered Ronald, as briefly as a boy could utter a sentiment of entire approval, while he clasped the hand of his friend.

"Yes, there are two of us, and she's another."

Great heroes generally have been little men, so I expect the same rule holds with heroines. Napoleon once disarmed the ire of some vengeful Amazons by pointing to his own insignificant body, and asking if he looked like a bloated aristocrat, changing their fury into laughter, and so preventing a catastrophe.

Mrs Bangles, even in the full glory of her warpaint, was a miniature and fairy-like female. Once she had made a burlesque out of Hamlet by acting that melancholy Dane in all seriousness; for, although she did her part very well as far as declamation and action went, the audience had to laugh when they looked at that tiny figure.

This night she stood in the centre of that company, while the distant sounds of a disturbed city filled the ears, calm and resolute in her disguise, yet, as to size, like a boy of ten years of age; Jack and Ronald were head and shoulders over her.

A little boy she appeared to be, brown skinned and barefooted, with shanks very spindley, and arms so thin that a touch might have broken them, while the features under the turkey-red rag of a turban were impish in their leanness and wrinkles.

That was a merciful lamp towards her vanity as a woman, if she had any left, for it burned dimly, and only showed the white cotton tunic and waistband which she wore in her assumed character, veiling a good deal of the other umber-stained outlines; but, for all that, the people who towered above her looked down upon her with as much respect, and listened for her next words with as much expectancy, as did the followers of the little Napoleon.

"I am going outside to see if the way is clear to some better place of defence than this, and if so, I shall lead you there. Meanwhile, wait for my return in darkness, and with as much patience as you can. Jack, Ronald, you will come with me now."

With a puff she blew out the last lamp, and left the company in a condition easier to be imagined than described.

There was a back exit from the schoolhouse which led through a small yard and into a side street. Here the three disguised ones made their way with the sounds of the fighting, or rather massacring, going on in the street beyond.

Fiendish yellings from the rebels mingled with vain shrieks for mercy from the victims, while the star-filled sky was ruddy with the flaring of burning buildings; and from the fort came the reports of guns, the heavy booming of which made the ground tremble under their feet.

The night was intensely hot, for there had been a blazing sun all day, so that the earth was like a heated oven—hot fumes below which as yet held the cooler air-waves aloft—therefore the scanty costumes of those sham natives felt appropriate to the sultriness of the evening.

As yet they had not met anyone, the way they were taking being a narrow lane between high walls; but at the end, where the wider street crossed, they could see the hurrying and excited crowds rushing along with torches and weapons of all kinds—a crowd reeling with the drunkenness of revenge and slaughter.

"Ha!" suddenly said Mrs Bangles to her son Jack in Hindoostanee, "here is an open door; perhaps we may find shelter here."

A small side door in the wall stood open, leading into an extensive garden, and into this they all glided silently.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Mrs Bangles with a shudder, as her bare feet slipped over something wet in the pathway, while she fell upon a body still warm, from which the life blood was pouring. "The monsters have been here, Jack, and this is one of their victims. Let us go carefully."

The lustrous stars were above them, shining and sparkling between the over-arching trees; also in front they could make out a building with the ruddy lamplight, showing up many of the windows, while over the roof loomed a massive tower.

Silence reigned over this garden and building. Not a moan came to disturb the peace, only the distant shoutings and stifled shrieks; but it was the silence of disaster and death, for too completely had the marauders done their fell work here before they had quitted it for other outrages.

As they approached the house, they could see that all the doors stood open, some of them broken from their hinges, and lying on the murdered bodies of the defenders. Along the garden walk they passed three bodies, it being too dark to distinguish the sexes. On the terrace in front of the house lay four more; inside, on the ground hall, were stretched eighteen men, with horrible gashes on their corpses, while the furniture had been broken in pieces and scattered about recklessly.

The lamps, still burning, showed them this; also in the lobbies leading to the inner chambers lay the women, where they had been dragged and butchered, dressed still in their evening costumes.

Mrs Bangles took a quiet survey of the premises inside and out, and saw that it was a curiously-built place, but one which might be easily defended, now that they were warned.

The entrance to the tower was from the outside, a zig-zag, open, stone staircase, with a hand-rail of bronze, which led up to the chamber or chambers above. Possibly it had been originally designed by some native sage as an observatory or place for midnight meditations.

"Boys," said the mother of Jack, "this is the best possible place in which our friends can quarter to-night, up in that tower, for the Sepoys have finished their work here, and it isn't so likely they will look again here, at least not before daylight. I am going back to guide the church people here, and while I am away I want you to gather all the ammunition, weapons and eatables you can find, and carry them up to the observatory. You will do so?"

"Yes, mother," replied Jack obediently.

"Don't disturb the bodies, for the same party may return; and if they do, remember, Ronald, that you are a mute; Jack will do the talking for you."

"I'll remember," said Ronald quietly.

"Good. Now, I'm off; be diligent, like brave boys as you are."

Saying which, Mrs Bangles went back by the way she had come, while the two boys began their explorations.

The mutineers and rabble had been in too great a hurry to get away to other scenes for them to do any very serious damage to the building; they had hunted down the residents from room to room, stabbing or shooting them as they fled or tried to hide, and only breaking what articles of furniture were likely to conceal a Feringhee, or contain treasure. Therefore the boys found food in abundance in the kitchens, pantries and cellars, and these they carried with all despatch up the zig-zag stairs; and after placing their first load on the upper balcony, they went down again for some weapons, not knowing who might be waiting for them in that upper darkened chamber.

They found on the bodies of the slain men several pistols which had been discharged, with some knives swords and three muskets. These pistols and muskets they loaded from the powder-flasks and bullet-pouches which each armed man had carried, and which the infuriated but careless crowd had left behind. Jack also possessed himself of the kitchen chopper, which, being of the tomahawk order, commended itself to his notice as a most useful weapon.

In one of the smaller apartments, which had been fitted up as a smoke-room, they discovered on the walls an ornamental display of armour and curious weapons. Most of these they detached from their nails and carried off with them; in fact, they had a heavy load next time they went up those narrow stairs.

"We must have a light up there, Ronald, for who knows what may have possession of the upper story," remarked Jack to his friend, as they neared the platform.

"Yes; we'll leave these things where we did the provisions, and go back for a lamp and some lights. I think I saw a box of lucifers in the smoke-room," replied Ronald.

"Right you are."

They had now reached the platform, which was faintly illuminated by the scarlet lights from the distant burning houses, and were about to lay down their loads, when suddenly Jack stopped with an exclamation of surprise.

"Hallo! Ronald, where have our provisions gone to?"

The bundles which they had lately left on the platform had been removed during their absence.