Amid the lumber of furniture, vases, crockery, musical instruments, and countless other objects, several more birds, motionless within their bubbles of glass, watched him wearily climb the stairs. He paused at the top, frowning. A ghostly voice had whispered in his ear: “The world is a bridge. Pass over it but do not build a house on it.” Was that a Christian or a Hindu proverb? He could not remember.
To accommodate the new arrival the Collector had had to turn out an indigo planter and his wife who had lodged themselves, uninvited, in the only remaining room. They had made a disagreeable fuss and had left, still grumbling, to seek shelter from Dr Dunstaple. Now, in their place, Hari was sitting crosslegged on the floor with his elbows propped on his knees and a sullen expression on his face. The Collector was annoyed to see that the room was lit only by a single candle; he spoke sharply to the bearer waiting at the door and he hurried away to find an oil-lamp.
“My dear Hari, why ever did you not call for more light? How long have you been sitting in the dark like this?”
Hari shrugged his shoulders crossly, as if to indicate that lights were of no importance to him. In the shadows the Collector could make out the form of another seated figure, but the light of the solitary candle was too dim for him to see who it was.
“I left instructions that everything for your comfort …”
“Oh, comfort … You think that I worry anxiously about such a thing as comfort!”
“I should have come before this but you must understand, I’ve had so many things to see to.” But not meaning to sound plaintive, he added firmly: “One’s duty has to come first, of course.” Hari shrugged again, but made no other reply.
The Collector was fond of Hari; it distressed him deeply that he should have to take advantage of him but he could see no alternative. He sighed and waited with impatience for the bearer to bring the lamp. To conduct this interview in semidarkness seemed furtive and unmanly to him.
When the lamp came at last it illuminated not only Hari but also the other figure seated on the carpet, who turned out to be the Prime Minister. Of course, he had come too! And he could not help thinking ungratefully: “Another mouth to feed!” Not that the Prime Minister looked as if he ate very much, however, he was only a bundle of skin and bones. The Prime Minister, in any case, seemed indifferent to his fate; he was gazing incuriously at the carpet a few inches in front of the Collector’s feet.
“I know that it must seem ungrateful of me to detain you here in the circumstances. I should like you to know that, personally speaking, it is the very last thing I should want to do. But I have to think of the safety of those under my protection … hm … a great number of women and children …”
“I show loyalty … You take advantage of loyalty. You give certificate to sweepers and send him away. Me you keep!” Hari’s voice rose in shrill indignation. “Me you keep prisoner and Prime Minister also! Very frankly, Mr Hopkin (although Hari correctly referred to ‘Mr and Mrs Hopkins’ he had a habit, distressing to the Collector, of reducing each separately to the singular), very frankly, it is all ‘as clear as mud’ to me. Please to explain these questions.”
Humiliated, the Collector could only repeat what he had said before about the safety of women and children.
Hari and the Prime Minister had presented themselves at the gates towards the end of the afternoon; evidently Hari and his father, the Maharajah, had had a disagreement over the question of loyalty to the British. Hari, firmly on the side of Progress, had insisted on leading the Palace army to their defence. But the Maharajah had declined to let him do any such thing. The whole country was rising to put the feringhees and their vassals to the sword; his own power was certain to increase once the Company was destroyed. He did not want Progress … he wanted money, jewels and naked girls, or rather, since he already had all of these things, he wanted more of them. Hari, like any reasonable person, found these desires (money, jewels, naked girls) incomprehensible. His father was prepared to connive at the destruction of the fount of knowledge the knowledge that had produced Shakespeare and would soon have railway trains galloping across the Indian continent! He had made a short speech on this topic, summoning the army and the Prime Minister to follow him to the side of the British to defend Progress. But in the end only the Prime Minister had followed him. The army, even if the circumstances had been more enticing, had long since lost its appetite for fighting. There was nothing left for Hari to do but to pledge his loyalty, obtain a certificate, and return to the Palace. The Collector, busy with other matters, had sent a message to ask him to stay. Hari had not wanted to. It is one thing to bring an army to defend one’s friends, another thing to join them simply to be attacked and probably killed. But in the meantime the advantages of having Hari in the Residency had become only too clear to the Collector. Hari’s presence might give the impression that the Maharajah supported the British. At the very least it would guarantee the neutrality of his army. Soon it became obvious to him that he could not let Hari go. Now, thinking about it again he became irritated. “It’s not my fault. How could I have acted differently? It’s unjust of Hari to treat me as if I’m personally responsible!”
“Come, Hari,” he said after a long silence. “You must forgive me for treating you so badly. Let’s go up on the roof and watch the cantonment burning. That’s not a sight we see every day of the week.”
From the roof it seemed as if a perfect semi-circle of fire stretched around the Residency enclave like some mysterious sign isolating a contagion from the dark countryside.
Part Two
10
The Collector had intended to make a round of the defences in the hour before dawn in order to give encouragement to his men. But he was desperately tired and Vokins failed to wake him at the time he had requested. The result was that he overslept by a good forty-five minutes and he was still pulling on his clothes as the first shots were fired.
The Padre, however, was making a round of the defences on his own account and, in the circumstances, this was probably encouragement enough … for the Padre had become extremely worried by the dangerous situation that his Krishnapur flock now found itself in. It was not the dangerous situation itself, however, but rather its implications that were at the source of his anxiety. If they now found themselves in mortal danger it could only be that God was displeased with them and was preparing to punish them as he had punished the Cities of the Plain! And yet the Padre, in his blindness, had believed that he was having some success in ferreting out sin among his flock.
In the few days since they had all been gathered together into the enclave the Padre, becoming increasingly frantic, had not ceased hurrying from one group to another. Even the steady, hot wind which blew relentlessly all day had not deterred him … indeed, it drove him on, for it seemed like a foretaste of the breath of Hell. His feet continued to patter over the searing earth while his black habit drank up the heat of the sun. Sometimes he wondered whether he might not already be in Hell. One thing above all kept him going. This was the possibility that God, in the last resort, might stay His hand from the total destruction of the Krishnapur sinners…if they showed signs of penitence.