Errant. A life story of latter-day chivalry

Front matter

EEEAN T. A LIFE -STORY OF LATTER-DAY CHIVALRY B- PEECY GEEG, author of "across the ZODIAC," etc. -'And yet — the Light that led astray Was Light lrom Heaven ! " IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MABSTON, SEABLE & RIVINGTON CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1880. (AU rights reserved. LONDON : ritINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFOttD STUEET AND CHAU.NG CROSS. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAri'EP. PACK. I. Spolia Opima ... ... ... ... I II. Fortes Creanttjk ... ... ... 16 III. On the Verge ... ... ... ... 34 IV. Fire 49 V. En Route ... ... ... ... ... 68 VI. The Burst of the Thunderstorm ... 78 VII. Væ Victis! 99 VIII. The Spring or the Tigek .:. ... 124 IX. The Lion at Bay ... ... ... ... 146 X. Loyal— a Mort ... ... ... 160 XI. Aphrodite Thalassia ... ... ... 171 XII. Guerdon ... ... ... ... 190 XIII.

Chapter I. Spolia Opima

"Aimed well, the chieftain's lance hath flown, Straggling in blood the savage lies." " A man's comprehension of India don't always answer to the length of his service here. It is possible for a man to be out twenty years, and know less than he knew when he landed as a griffin — having only unlearnt the wholesome consciousness of his own ignorance. Colonels who have spent half a lifetime here don't know the very alphabet of Sepoy thought : there are Members of Council about as well acquainted with Native character and Native interests as — the present or late President of the Board of Control ; and mer chants who go home with a fortune earned by a quarter of a century's trading in Bombay, who under stand as much of Native commerce as they do of cotton growing. I think with Darcy that half the Native Army is mad with fury, and the other half with fear ; but I admit that all I have learnt from talking for years to men of every race and rank, from a syce to VOL. i. b ERRANT. a Secretary — all he has picked up in eighteen months with a knowledge of Hindostanee such as not one Captain of Sepoys in five possesses — maybe as worthless as the views of those who have spent a lifetime on the edge of a world beyond whose edgethey never penetrate."

" Of course, men who never crossed the Mahratta ditch, and fancy that all India is Bengal, and all Bengal is Calcutta, are more ignorant than if they had picked up their knowledge from a score of old Indians at Cheltenham. But that's not to the point." " Certainly not, Major. I spoke of moral, not geo graphical distance. We live among the Natives, jostle them, talk to them, depend on them for every breath we draw. But the whole world of Native thought, life, character is hidden from us ; and time, spent as most of us spend it, don't enlighten us. Six months lived with Natives gives a man at least as good a right to guess what they are thinking as sixteen years lived alongside of them; and the guess — is 'a guess, after all." The first speaker was a keen-looking, bright-eyed, tall, and somewhat loosely framed man of rather more than thirty, with a countenance eminently intellectual, but somewhat worn and pale : a Londoner of the clubs in manner, speech, and bearing, with a touch of the literary Bohemian, though he had not seen for the last twelve years "the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."

The other, though not actually in uniform, was evi dently by air, carriage, and even dress a soldier, but one whom a long military life had not divested of the innate vulgarity and offensiveness in which a vulgar Scotchman excels even cockney impudence — red-faced, coarse-featured, with hahof reddish-brown and thick whiskers of brownish-red, his figure and visage of that common type which tells little of the informing spirit save the broad common characters of the class in which their owner has been born and bred. Around them, in the single sitting-room of a bachelor's bungalow in the minor station of Sivapore, sat, lay, or lounged others, officers of the Company's and the Queen's service, half-formed boys and heavily bearded men. One figure alone, out of some half-score, attracted the eye ; partly by the full uniform of the 36th Lancers, contrasting the civil or irregular dress of the others, partly by the erect, it might be slightly constrained, military attitude ; chiefly, perhaps, by the contrast which attitude and dress presented to the face and frame.

The latter, though rather tall and well-pro portioned, looked at a first glance slight and wanting in soldierly strength ; perhaps because the hands and feet were notably small, and the long, slender, smooth fingers and delicate palm, white, elegant, and soft as a woman's, seemed suited to anything rather than the hridle and the sword. The face was yet more feminine, not merely or chiefly from the smoothness of extreme youth, but from the beauty and delicate formation of the features : the perfectly shaped, fine nostril, the small mouth and white even teeth, the dark eyes and long thick black lashes, and the soft hair of the same raven hue, worn as long as military rule would allow. Two particulars only gave the countenance a mas culine character. The slight protrusion of the lower ERRANT. lip was not indeed concealed, but escaped notice, under the shadow of the full silken moustache, black as the hair, which shaded the upper ; the lower part of the broad forehead was marked by the prominence of those organs, immediately above the eyes, to which the phrenologist assigns the functions of physical obser vation and instinctive comparison that constitute the foundation of martial capacity, and by black, straight, projecting eyebrows.

There was a slight curve of scorn, a still slighter quiver of impatience in the lines of the mouth ; the lids, with their long fringe, veiled the fire that had for a moment shone from the dark eyes ; the face generally was calm and expressionless. "Isn't the wish mother — or should it be father? — to the thought, Darcy ? " asked a fair-haired subal tern. " Persia has come down on her marrow-bones; Dalhousie has robbed everybody within reach that would pay for robbing ; and unless our fellows get a licking in China, the mutiny they talk of will be our only chance of fighting — and jironiotion." This speech acted, as the daring boy meant it to act, like a bombshell : containing a number of ex plosive questions sufficient to set every one, save him to whom it was nominally addressed, talking at once, in their loudest tones, then angriest and most dog matic nonsense.

Happily the discussion, hot as the glaring May sun without, and peppery as the dishes just disposed of at tiffin, was promptly interrupted. A stalwart Native servant, in the costume of an Afghan warrior, and with a bearing at least as soldierly as that of any present, entered ; and, saluting hi military fashion the silent Lancer, laid before him a huge rough tiger-skin, barely dried, and a white skull. The latter was thrown aside for the moment ; all gathered round to examine the former. "Very much out of condition," pronounced the youth, confidently. "Hardly worth keeping as a trophy, or giving as a compliment, Darcy." "A man-eater, and a monstrous one," said the more experienced civilian. "I heard of one that had become the terror of the peasantry for miles around Kalpore — where you were on Monday, Darcy.

Where did you put up this brute ? " " He put us up not five miles from Kalpore on the road hither," replied the young Lancer, in a very quiet, distinct, but low and almost languid tone. "I'll bet you a gold mohur I know where the skin goes, Darcy; even if you don't know yet, yourself. There are two pretty American girls, with their father, at the General's to-day; and if you don't offer it to the eldest before you have been an hour in her company, her sister will ask for it." " I hope not. It is unpleasant to refuse a lady's request ; and this is bespoken." " Aye ; one's sister or sweetheart always secures one's first skin a year or two in advance," returned the boy, laughing. "But one never keeps such a promise under present temptation ; and I'll bet on the American. Come, Darcy, a gold mohur, or a sov, as you please."

" I don't break my promises ; I don't bet on cer tainties ; and I don't make a lady's influence the subject of a wager or a debate," answered Darcy, his brows slightly contracting. " I promised my first." ERRANT. "You said you shot this on the Kalpore road?" inquired the Sepoy Major, in a somewhat sharp tone. "I don't think I said so," returned Darcy. "Yes, Clay, it is my prize," he added, in answer to an in quiring look from his young comrade. " Where did you hit him ? " the Major inteiq^osed, after closely examining the skin. " I can't find the hole." There was a sneer on his face that gave a very offensive meaning to the question, and provoked looks of displeasure from most of the company ; who as English gentlemen regarded the word of a gentle man as conclusive, and as the members of a small military society were all offended by the wanton attempt to provoke a quarrel that must interfere with the general spirit of cordial comradeship on which the comfort of their life depended.

The Lancer looked the speaker straight in the face for half a minute, with a glance of such undisguised contempt as repaid the affront fourfold. " I suppose not," he said at last. "Afzul; " and he addressed to his servant a few words in a tongue which none of those present understood, and which only one recognized as Arabic. The man folded the tiger-skin, saluted, and departed with it. " I wonder why you took that fellow, Darcy," said a Captain of Bengal Irregular Cavalry. "He was discharged from the army, and had but just come out of prison." " Do you know his story, Cameron ? No ? I do : and I think no worse of a soldier, and a chief of the Koreish, for resenting on parade the insult put upon him by one who, though his superior officer, could not pretend to be his superior, in birth, rank, or military experience."

His eyes were fixed on the Scotch Major as he spoke ; but the look had lost the scornful meaning so apparent a few moments before, and seemed to the company purely accidental. Major Thomson did not appear to observe it. He rose, knocked the ashes from his cheroot, and turned to depart. " It was well you had a rifle at hand, considering that you went to Kalpore on duty, under orders to return without delay," he observed. " I had no rifle," Darcy said, quietly. "Oh, indeed! You killed the man-eater with a sling, or a cherry-stone. I have read something of the kind, in the ' Arabian Nights ' or — what's his name ? " " Munchausen ? " suggested the Lancer, so coolly ignoring the ostentatious insolence of the other that Thomson departed in utter discomfiture, under a salute of irrepressible laughter from the whole party.

" Damn the man," cried Clay, springing to his feet. "How did you kill the beast, Darcy? You must tell us now, and give us the means to squelch Thomson the first time he recurs to it, or he'll whisper and hint through every Company's regiment in Bengal that a Lancer bought the skin and bragged of killing the brute." " No one who knows cither of us," retorted the other, "will think of believing him." " That is all very well, Darcy," interposed a senior, " but his hint is just one of those spiteful calumnies ERRANT. that every fool likes to believe. Besides, there are boasters and cowards ; and men who don't know you will think it more hkely that you belong to that class than that a lad of twenty, not two years out, killed a tiger alone, and that none of his comrades know the rights of the matter."

"I was not alone, Colonel. And if the American family Clay speaks of are at the General's, hot as it is, I shall go and pay my respects there. I shall be on duty this evening till rather late : don't let them starve me altogether if I fail to get back till you are in full swing of cheroots and brandy-panee." About half an hour before sunset, Afzul held his master's splendid chestnut charger in front of the General's verandah. Two pretty grey Arab ponies with side-saddles were held by native grooms at a little distance, and beside them was the General's well-known black horse. Darcy came out, followed by the grey-haired stately soldier who commanded the station : a Company's officer who had lately won, rather by seniority than by service, brilliant as had been his exploits, the rank of Brigadier.

"These despatches," said the latter, "will keep me for three quarters of an hour at least ; and I cannot let the children lose their ride. I dare say they will prefer your escort to mine ; and as you are not on duty till half-past six, you can so arrange your ride as to reach your cantonment by a quarter past, and I will meet you there with a relief which for once will not be welcome." As he spoke, the young ladies to whom he referred appeared ; too late, fortunately, to hear the name he had applied to them. Children, however, in the eyes of an older man than Darcy, they certainly were. The elder, though the Southern climate in which she was born and bred gave her a somewhat more womanly appearance than belonged to her years, had but just seen her fifteenth birthday. Her sister was a year or two younger.

The long, soft dark brown curls, dark eyes and eyebrows of the former, contrasting the light-brown wavy tresses and light English com plexion of the latter, made the difference of age appear perhaps greater than it was. The admiration and delight with which the young girls stroked and praised the graceful ponies they were about to mount were expressed with childish frankness ; but the elder received the General's excuses with an air of self possession, and replied to them with a gracious dignity, that seldom characterize maidens of her age, except in the States. "Darcy has a double advantage over me," said the General, "in being a younger man and, I find, an older acquaintance. You will pardon me more easily than you care to say for the exchange." " Papa has set you the example, General," the young lady returned, as the Brigadier lifted her to her saddle, while Darcy performed the same service for her younger sister.

The party rode faster than is the custom in England. It would be dark in an hour, and at that season outdoor exercise in India is enjoyable only for some half-hour before the setting and after the rising of the tropical sun. Both the girls, but especially the elder, conversed with the perfect ease ERRANT. of maidens early accustomed to society, but also with something of the simplicity of childhood as well as of the pleasant frankness of personal friendship, especially gratifying to their cavalier. "Mr. Darcy," said the younger, after a while, " Florence has made me promise to ask what she don't like to ask for herself. We had set our hearts on bringing at least one tiger-skin away from India, and we should have that one to remember you by till we see you again. We shall see you, I have no doubt ; though you say it is impossible.

Everybody goes to the States one day or other, and you will not come there without paying us a visit ? " " Certainly not ; though on the map the distance between New York and Louisiana seems long to be travelled, under any lighter attraction, in the short time that is allowed for a soldier's leave — unless, indeed, he have the misfortune to be on half-pay." " It seems," said the elder girl, "a little like what we have heard of those English country folk, who request a friend starting for Calcutta to take a message or a parcel for a son or cousin at Delhi or Lahore. But railways and steamers have made the journey really a short one." "However long it be, Mademoiselle," returned Darcy, with a bow, " I shall not fail to call upon you if I have ever the good fortune to find myself within two thousand miles, while there is yet a hope of finding either of you in your present home."

" You may be sure," said the younger sister, " that Florence will have told the story of the tiger to all our neighbours within twenty miles at least ; and the skin will be there if we are not, to secure you a welcome throughout Louisiana." There was a shade of perplexity or annoyance on Darcy's face, not unperceived by the quick eyes of his elder companion. But at this moment the party reached a point where the road divided. He was about to take that to the left when Florence inter posed — ■ " The other road is shadier and pleasanter. Can we not get round that way in time ? " " Certainly," .answered Darcy, promptly, though with a certain scarcely perceptible hesitation or reluct ance in his tone. They rode on more slowly, and Florence spoke again. " You have not answered Eva's request," she said.

" I must entreat your pardon, and your sister's. I admit your right to the skin ; but in truth it is not such as I could like to give you. The brute was what they call a man-eater ; one of those aged animals which, unable longer to run down deer or other wild prey, hang about the neighbourhood of roads or villages to sxn'ing on solitary travellers or stray children. Whether their diet disagree with them, whether they are starved, or simply from age, the skins of man-eaters are seldom worth having." "Do not say that ! " answered Florence, earnestly. " You know that the value of such a gift does not depend on its beauty. I should like to have the skin of the first tiger you had shot, even if there were not a much deeper interest attached to it." The girl's colour deepened, and tears stood in her ERRANT. eyes as she turned them on her companion.

She was far too much in earnest to permit him to evade a reply. " As I said just now, Mademoiselle, your claim is incontestable ; and I feel that I must seem worse than ungracious in resisting it. I am sorry— very sorry," he added in a different tone, as he observed her look of extreme surprise and mortification, " that the skin is no longer in my gift. Many months ago I had promised the first I might kill ; and I have kept my promise." '"You cannot have sent it home yet," she replied quickly. " I am sure no English lady but would wish you to give me this, with its terrible story. You may send her another and a handsomer one." " You honour me in wishing for it," replied Darcy, " and nothing could excuse my refusal if it had been mine to give as I pleased. The person to whom I made my promise is the last to whom I could break it, because one who would feel the slight keenly, and is wholly unable to resent it."

The young lady was silent, perhaps from natural displeasure as well as mortified vanity. Her com panion's attention and courtesy in the short period of their acquaintance had flattered her with a belief in her own influence which, mere child as she was, was very pleasant ; and the refusal appeared ungracious and unkind. Before she had decided whether to resent the supposed slight, before her better sense and gratitude had time to overcome the feeling of feminine pique, Darcy drew bridle for a moment in front of a small Indian dwelling, enclosed in a rude neglected garden of no great extent. Near the gate, under the shade of a great banyan, stood a young girl of darker complexion and slighter form than either of his companions, with long straight black hair. Her dress, half-English half-Indian, her colour and features, and something in her manner that was cer tainly not English, perplexed the fair Americans ; who had seen and heard enough of India to know that only a Native girl belonging to the lowest caste, which certainly was not here the case, would be thus seen unveiled in public.

The young Eurasian, for such she was, had sprung forward as she saw the party, and her movement had arrested Darcy, who had intended to pass with a silent salute. "I thank you for your present," she said in a sweet low voice, speaking English perfectly but with a slight peculiarity of accent. "You will tell me, when I see you next, how you killed him. When will you come here again ? " " Not this evening, Zela ; nor, probably, to morrow." He added a few words in Hindostanee, and Zela, whose eyes had been eagerly fixed, with a look not especially kindly, on his companions, turned slowly and re-entered the house as they rode on. There was a certain constraint in the conversation that followed, as Darcy showed no inclination to explain what his companions could not ask. As the cantonment came in view he spoke, recurring once more to the topic which both had been content to drop.

ERRANT. " I know that I have displeased if not grieved you hy what seems an ungracious denial of a natural and reasonable request. Believe me, if you cannot for give : — I am more vexed to refuse you this memorial of our short acquaintance than you can be to miss a possession so naturally interesting to you. As you said, any English lady would feel that you had the best right to the man-eater's skin if you cared to possess it ; and would fancy no slight or offence in the postponement of my promise. But Zela, though she is only a child, has quick and keen feelings ; and her position renders her naturally and painfully sensitive where those whose rank is assured would never imagine neglect or discourtesy. By birth she is at least our equal. By the fallen fortunes of her family, and the prejudices of English and Native society against the mixed race, she is placed in the position of an inferior and almost of an outcast.

Other circumstances also would make her peculiarly alive to anything like a slight from me ; and I could not prevent her fancying that I had broken my promise to her, lightly as it was made, out of regard to your superiority of race and position. When so unfortunate that I must seem discourteous to one of two ladies, I think it best to displease her to whom my conduct can only give offence and not pain, to whom it may be an affront but not a humiliation." The American girl looked up, her colour brighter, her eyes even moister than under the mortification of the first refusal, but with a very different expression. "You are right, quite right," she said, her voice trembling a little, with more emotion than the incident might naturally have excited. " I can feel for your friend, and I would not accept anything, if you would give it, at the cost of even a seeming slight to her.

But don't say, and don't think, that before I understood your motive your refusal gave me offence and not pain. It hurt me to feel that you, to whom we owe so much, were unkind to me. I was not offended— or," she added frankly, " if I was offended for a moment, I felt immediately how foolish and ungrateful it was, and how little right I could have to take offence." ERRANT.

Chapter II. Fortes Creantur

" Though the Great Houses love us not, we own, to do them right, That the Great Houses, all save one, have borne them well in light." The officers at Sivapore at this time were not numerous. The station contained a battalion of Bengal Native Infantry, a regiment of Irregular Cavalry, chiefly Mahometans, from which, however, a squadron was detached on other service, and a portion of the Queen's 36th Lancers, under command of a regimental Major, whose brilliant services had obtained him the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. But several officers from each of the Company's regiments were absent, either on leave or on civil duty, and scarcely a score from all the corps present were assembled at the common mess. They had guests this evening : among them the father of the American girls, who, though quite unknown to the General, save for an introduction from his last host to whom he was equally a stranger, enjoyed the free handed Indian hospitality of the period.

A German traveller of rank, the guest of the commanchng officer of the Lancers, was also present ; as well as the Editor of an influential journal in the north of India — FORTES CREANTUR. the same whose remarks on Anglo-Indian ignorance of Native life and character introduced the conversa tion recorded in the last chapter. The dinner was over; the servants — except the punhah-wallahs, who sitting outside the room drew to and fro the pendant screens or blinds that kept up a cooling current in the hot atmosphere — had withdrawn. The American, with a Queen's officer, was playing ecarte in a far corner of the large room. The majority of the com pany had gathered round the German, who preferred his huge pipe filled with Latakia to the choicest cheroots of his hosts. " Yes," said the traveller, " it was about the least pleasant of the many adventures with wild beasts I have seen or shared.

It was fortunate that the girls were riding with their father, and not travelling in palanquin as your Enghsh women and children do. Like most Americans of the Southern States, they and their father are excellent riders. As we entered the jungle we were overtaken by a young officer in your Lancer uniform. He and Mr. Dupont were riding a little in the rear, I was in front with the girls, when we heard the roar and crash. Their ponies took fright and bolted at once, and my horse followed them for a while before I could rein him up. When I rode back, the beast was atop of Dupont's horse, and the rider underneath. The tiger had torn the horse frightfully, but apparently in trying to get at the man. My revolver was unloaded ; and I should have been of little use in any case. But the officer had dismounted, having, I suppose, more com mand of his animal than any of us, though it galloped vol. i. c ERRANT. past me wild with terror as I came up.

The tiger would have reached and torn Dupont to pieces in another moment. Your comrade, on foot, was walk ing steadily towards them, his revolver levelled, evidently intending to close as nearly as possible before firing with such a weapon. When he came within some twenty paces the tiger observed him, and, turning from its helpless prey, seemed crouching for another spring. I never saw a cooler thing. The officer stood still ; levelled steadily, taking careful aim, and fired. I thought him mad, for, wherever the bullet struck, it seemed impossible that a pistol ball should kill or so disable the beast as to prevent a spring that must certainly be fatal. But two reports followed one another almost instantaneously ; and to my surprise the tiger sprang indeed, but dropped instantly and was quite dead in two or three seconds.

After I had helped to disentangle Dupont from under his mangled horse, I looked for the trace of the bullets, wondering where they could have struck. Had they hit the brute anywhere in the body, they would have been useless. Had they struck the skull, probably they might have glanced off, or at most inflicted a wound that would have only served to madden the tiger. But your comrade had aimed straight at the eyeball, and both bullets had gone right through into the brain without cutting the skin. It would have been a good shot had it been fired at an iron target ; but I know no man who could have aimed so accurately at twenty paces at such a mark. I hoped to have met the man here this evening, and told him what I thought of it." FORTES CREANTUR. 19 " Darcy, by Jove!" cried Clay. "I saw, when I came to examine the skull, that the right eye-socket was damaged in two places.

Truth beats Munchausen hollow, Major." "A parallel to that wisdom of griffinhood Evans so much esteems," growled the Scot. " Recruits often outdare in their first battle veterans who know what danger is. A fellow who sees a tiger for the first time knows no better than to attack it on foot with a revolver ; and gets the name of a hero by a fluke such as happens once in a century." " I grant, Major," retorted the enfant terrible of the mess, ' ' that a man of your experience would have known better than to interfere between a man-eater and his meal. Mr. Dupont," raising his voice, " I feel that I ought to apologize for the solecism committed by one of ours in killing the tiger in so irregular a fashion, since the offender was my chum, Lionel Darcy." "I know it, sir," returned the American. " I met him at Brigadier Halbert's to-day, and he rode out with my girls this evening.