第40章

Irwin were also in the city, where they were lodged in the Charing Cross Hotel.Although the city was packed to a most alarming degree and the military situation was decidedly critical, Heideck did not anywhere observe any particular excitement.

The English preserved their peculiarly calm demeanour, and the natives kept silence out of fear: upon the latter the fully unexpected and incomprehensible change in the situation had probably had a certain bewildering effect.

When Heideck, shortly before sunset, went from the camp to the city to visit the ladies, he only became more firmly convinced, as he passed through the surging crowd outside the walls, that the position of the army had been very badly selected.Far too large a number of men and animals had been crowded within a comparatively small space.If Russian shrapnel were to fall among this dense mass a terrible panic was inevitable.The proximity of the fortified city was sure to induce the soldiers to take refuge behind its walls.Heideck had hitherto not gained the impression that resolute courage was to be expected of the native soldiers.

In the street which led from the Shalimar Park to the railway station in the suburb of Naulakha, Heideck had constantly to go out of his way to allow the long columns of heavily laden camels and ox-waggons which came towards him to pass, and he therefore took nearly two hours to reach his goal.The Charing Cross Hotel was full up to the attics, and the two ladies had, with the children, to be content with a small room on the third floor which had been let to them at an enormous price.

Mrs.Baird, a lady of small, delicate build, but of energetic spirits and genuine English pride, appeared perfectly collected and confident.She did not utter a single word about her own evidently very uncomfortable position and of the privations which, under the existing circumstances, her children had to suffer, but only about the victory of the British arms, that she was convinced would immediately take place.The march from Mooltan to Lahore was, in her eyes, an advance, and she did not entertain the smallest doubt that the Russian insolence would in a short time meet with terrible chastisement.

"It is terrible to think," she said to Heideck, "that a nation that calls itself Christian should dare attack us in India.What was this unhappy land before we took pity on it? England has freed it from the hands of barbarous despots and brought it happiness! The Indian cities have grown in prosperity because our laws have paved the way for free development of commerce and intercourse.It is in the highest sense of the word a mission of civilisation that our nation has here fulfilled.If Heaven gives Russia the victory, this now so happy land will be hurled back into the blackness of barbarism." She appeared to wait for a word of assent from Mrs.

Irwin, but the latter sat in serious silence.

"You ought not to be so silent, dearest Edith, and ought not to pull such a melancholy face," said the Colonel's wife, turning to her with a gentle reproach."I perfectly understand that the sad events of your private life are distressing you.But all personal sorrow should now be merged into the general grief.What is the fate of the individual, when his country is exposed to such danger?

I know that you are as good a patriot as any Englishwoman, but it appears to me that it is necessary to prove it in these hours of danger.Anxiety and moroseness have at such times upon one's surroundings the effect of a contagious disease.""But possibly I am not the good patriot you take me for.""Ah! What do you mean by that?"

"I cannot look at wars from your point of view, dear Mrs.Baird.

It almost seems to me that there is not a very great difference between men and brute beasts, who fight each other out of hunger, or jealousy, and all kinds of low instincts.""Oh, what a comparison to draw!"