Part 16 (1/2)

Pattering footsteps sounded on the causeway, and a little crowd of nearly doubled figures came up it at a run

”Fire!”

The volley took the rebels absolutely by surprise, and no e Five of the rebels fell back headlong, and the rest, who followed up the causeway, turned on their heels and ran

”'Bout turn!” Brown shouted suddenly ”Use the steel, , and lunging as he spoke, and he had already checked a sudden rush by the prisoners

They had thought the e froht! That'll do the up with the lantern Brown had asked for, and Brown took it and began waving it above his head

”They must have heard that volley!” he ht began to dance over in the British ca up and down and sidewise in sudden little jerks Brown read the jerks, as he could never have read writing, and a moment later he answered them

”Non below, the lot of you! Give , sir”

”Not yet There's so else yet, and I can do it best Besides, soht be a rush again at any ut Khan iet down His orders are my orders Understand? Very well, then And you without a weapon, your job is to shut the door that you leave the ht from the outside-d'you understand h the door, and then shut it tight!”

”But, how'll you get out, sir?”

”That's ain Get ready to fire another volley!”

The mutineers made another and aup it , and at the double Brown let one volley loose in the e down on thee of the causeway by dint of sheer iround alive, and in the darkness it must have been impossible for the ranary's defenders

”That'll keep 'eer! Now, quick, you et to shut the door tight on you These prisoners here are going to follow you-they o doith you for that matter No! that won't do They could open the door below, couldn't they? They'll have to stay up here Got any rope? Then bind them, somebody Bind their hands and feet Now, off with you!”

Brown spent the next fewflashes that zig-zagged in the velvet blackness of the British lines Then, as a voice booranary, ”All's well, sir! I'm just about to shut the door!” he fixed his eyes on the fakir, and laughed at hi to turn in our accounts of hoe've worked out this 'Hookuiven orders, and I've obeyed orders! We've both accounted for a death or two, and we've both accepted responsibility We're going to know in less than five minutes fro I know, though, without asking There's one person, and she a woman, who'll weep for me Will anybody weep for you, I wonder?”

A lantern waved wildly fronaled an answer

”See that? That's to say, you glassy-eyed horror you, that ourlike a rat froive hioing to be a holocaust, my friend!”

He cocked his rifle, and exaht carefully The fakir shuddered, evidently thinking that the charge was intended for himself

”No! It won't be that way I know a better! I' har of the doht the rifle to his shoulder There was a chorus of yells from the prisoners, and a noise like a wounded horse's scream from the fakir The rest were bound, but the fakir rose and writhed toward him on his heels, with his sound arm stretched up in an attitude of despair beside the withered one

A chorus of bugles burst out froh the blackness

”All right! Here goes!” said Brown And he aiger

Tenranary that had spread itself through-and not over-as in its way There were seventeen tons of powder that responded to the invitation of Brown's bullet

XIV