Page:In Black and White - Kipling (1890).djvu/93

 "Go on! In the name of the State, go forward!" shouted the Policeman, but there was an ugly cracking and splintering of shutters and the crowd halted, with oaths and growlings, before the house whence the brickbat had been thrown.

Then without any warning, broke the storm—not only in the Gully of the Horsemen but in half-a-dozen other places. The tazias rocked like ships at sea, the long pole-torches dipped and rose round them while the men shouted:—"The Hindus are dishonouring the tazias! Strike! Strike! Into their temples for the Faith?" The six or eight Policemen with each tazia drew their batons and struck as long as they could in the hope of forcing the mob forward, but they were overpowered, and as contingents of Hindus poured into the streets the fight became general. Half a mile away where the tazias were yet untouched the drums and the shrieks of "Ya Hasan! Ya Hussain!" continued, but not for long. The Mullahs at the corners of the streets knocked the legs from the bedsteads that supported their pulpits and smote for the Faith, while stones fell from the silent houses upon friend and foe, and the packed streets bellowed:—"Din! Din! Din!" A tazia caught fire and was dropped for a flaming barrier between Hindu and Musalman at the corner of the Gully. Then the crowd surged forward and "Wali Dad drew me close by the stone pillar of a well.

"It was intended from the beginning!" he shouted in my ear, with more heat than blank unbelief should be guilty of. "The bricks were carried up to the houses beforehand. These swine of Hindus! We shall be gutting kine in their temples to-night! "

Tazia after tazia, some burning, others torn to pieces, hurried past us and the mob with them, howling, shrieking and striking at the house doors in their flight. At last we saw the reason of the rush. Hugonin, the Assistant District Superintendent of Police, a boy of twenty, had got together thirty constables and was forcing the crowd through the streets. His old grey Police-horse showed no sign of uneasiness as it was spurred