proarious
mob raged through the city and Anarkalli, only kept from breaking all
bounds by the tact and good-humour of a handful of cavalry and police;
men of their own race, unshaken by open or covert attempts to suborn
their loyalty--a minor detail worth putting on record.

* * * * *

Friday was a day of rumours. While the city continued furiously to rage,
reports of fresh trouble flowed in from all sides: further terrible
details from Amritsar; rumours that the Army and the police were being
tampered with and expected to join the mob; serious trouble at Ahmedabad
and Lyallpur, where seventy British women and children were herded, in
one bungalow, till they could safely be removed. Everywhere the same
tale: stations burned, railways wrecked, wires cut. Fresh stories
constantly to hand; some true, some wildly exaggerated; anger in the
blood of the men; terror in the hearts of the women, longing to get
away, yet suddenly afraid of trains packed with natives, manned by
natives, who might be perfectly harmless; but, on the other hand, might
not....

It was as Rose had said; to realise the significance of these things,
one needed to have spent half a lifetime in that other India, in the
good days when peaceful loyal masses had not been galvanised into
disaffection; when an Englishwoman, of average nerve, thought nothing of
travelling alone up and down the country, or spending a week alone in
camp--if needs must--secure in the knowledge that--even in a disturbed
Frontier district--no woman would ever be touched or treated with other
than unfailing respect.

Yet a good many were preparing to flit: and to the men their departure
would spell relief; not least, to Roy--the new-made lover. Parting would
be a wrench; but at this critical moment--for England and India--the tug
two ways was distinctly a strain; and the less she saw of it all, the
better for their future chance of happiness. He felt by no means sure it
had not been imperilled already.

But the exigencies of the hour left no room for vague forebodings.
Emergency orders, that morning, detailed Lance with a detachment for the
Railway Workshops, where passive resisters were actively on the
war-path. Roy, after early stables, was dispatched with another party,
to strengthen a cavalry picket near the Badshahi Mosque, on the
outskirts of the city, where things might be lively in the course of the
day.

Passing through Lahore, he sent h