Part 52 (1/2)

And swift as an echo a young voice beside him came jibingly:

”It's me, Pandy! Take that.”

It's me! Just so; me with a vengeance. For the right attack and the left were both well up. There was a short, sharp volley; then the welcome familiar order. A cheer, a clatter, a rush and clas.h.i.+ng with the bayonets. It seemed but half a minute before Jim Douglas found himself among the guns slas.h.i.+ng at a dazed artilleryman who had a port-fire in his hand. So the artillery on either side never had a chance, and Major Erlton, riding up with the 9th Lancers as the central attack, found that bit of the fighting over. The picket was taken, the mutineers had fled cityward leaving four guns behind them.

And against one of these, as the Major rode close to gloat over it, leaned a man whom he recognized at once.

”My G.o.d! Douglas,” he said, ”where--where's Kate?--where's my wife?”

It was rather an abrupt transition of thought, and Jim Douglas, who was feeling rather queer from something, he scarcely knew what, looked up at the speaker doubtfully.

”Oh, it is you, Major Erlton,” he said slowly. ”I thought--I mean I hoped she was here--if she isn't--why, I suppose I'd better go back.”

He took his arm off the gun and half-stumbled forward, when Major Erlton flung himself from his horse and laid hold of him.

”You're hit, man--the blood's pouring from your sleeve. Here, off with your coat, sharp!”

”I can't think why it bleeds so?” said Jim Douglas feebly, looking down at a clean cut at the inside of the elbow from which the blood was literally spouting. ”It is nothing--nothing at all.”

The Major gave a short laugh. ”Take the go out of you a bit, though.

I'll get a tourniquet on sharp, and send you up in a dhooli.”

”What an unlucky devil I am!” muttered Jim Douglas to himself, and the Major did not deny it: he was in a hurry to be off again with the party told to clear the Koodsia Gardens. Which they did successfully before sunrise, when the expedition returned to camp cheering like demons and dragging in the captured guns, on which some of the wounded men sat triumphantly. It was their first real success since Budli-ke-serai, two months before; and they were in wild spirits.

Even the Doctor, fresh from shaking his head over many a form lifted helplessly from the dhoolis, was jubilant as he sorted Jim Douglas'

arm.

”Keep you here ten days or so I should say. There's always a chance of its breaking out again till the wound is quite healed. Never mind! You can go into Delhi with the rest of us, before then.”

”Yoicks forward!” cried a wounded lad in the cot close by. The Doctor turned sharply.

”If you don't keep quiet, Jones, I'll send you back to Meerut. And you too, Maloney. I've told you to lie still a dozen times.”

”Sure, Docther dear, ye couldn't be so cruel,” said a big Irishman sitting at the foot of his bed so as to get nearer to a new arrival who was telling the tale of the fight. ”And me able-bodied and spoiling to be at me wurrk this three days.”

”It's a curious fact,” remarked the Doctor to Jim Douglas as he finished bandaging him, ”the hospital has been twice as insubordinate since Nicholson came in. The men seem to think we are to a.s.sault Delhi tomorrow. But we can't till the siege train comes, of course. So you may be in at the death!”

Jim Douglas felt glad and sorry in a breath.

Finally he told himself he could let decision stand over for a day or two. He must see Hodson first, and find out if the letter he had had from his spies about an Englishwoman, concealed in Delhi, referred to Kate Erlton.

CHAPTER II.

BITS, BRIDLES, SPURS.

The letter, however, did not refer to Kate; though, curiously enough, the Englishwoman it concerned had been, and still was concealed in an Afghan's house. Kate, then, had not been the only Englishwoman in Delhi. There was a certain consolation in the thought, since what was being done for one person by kindly natives might very well be done for another. Besides, removed as he was now from the fret and strain of actual search, Jim Douglas admitted frankly to Major Hodson that he was right in saying that Mrs. Erlton must either have come to an end of her troubles altogether, or have found friends better able, perhaps, than he to protect her.

Regarding the first possibility also Major Hodson was skeptical. He had hundreds of spies in the city. Such a piece of good luck as the discovery of a Christian must have been noised abroad. They had not mentioned it; he did not, therefore, believe it had occurred. He would, however, inquire, and till the answer came it would be foolish to go back to the city. Jim Douglas admitted this also; but as the days pa.s.sed, the desire to return increased; especially when Major Erlton came to see him, which he did with dutiful regularity. Jim Douglas could not help admiring him when he stood, stiff and square, thanking him as Englishmen thank their fellows for what they know to be beyond thanks.