Part 12 (1/2)

Towards that weary slow-coming evening, though, after we had beaten them back--or, rather, after my brave comrades had beaten them back half a score of times--I saw that something was up; and as soon as I saw what that something was, I knew that it was all over, for our men were too much cut up and disheartened for any more gallant sorties.

I've not said any more about the guns, only that we spiked them, and left them standing in the market plain, about fifty yards from the gates. I may tell you now, though, that the next morning they were gone, and we forgot all about them till the night I'm talking about, when they were dragged out again, with a lot of noise and shouting, from a building in the far corner of the square.

We didn't want telling what that meant.

It was plain enough to all of us that the scoundrels had drilled out the touch-holes again, and that during the night they would be planted, and the first discharge would drive down all our defences, and leave us open to a rush.

”We must try your plan, Smith,” says Captain Dyer, with a quiet stern look. ”It is time now to evacuate the place.”

Then he knelt down and took a look at the guns with his gla.s.s, and I knew he must have been thinking of how he stood tied to the muzzle of one of them, for he gave a sort of shudder as he closed his gla.s.s with a snap.

Just then, Miss Ross came round with Lizzy and Mrs Bantem, carrying wine and water, and I saw a sort of quiet triumph in Lieutenant Leigh's face, as, avoiding Captain Dyer, Miss Ross went up to him, when he half-beckoned to her, and stood by him like a slave, giving him bottle and gla.s.s, and then standing by his side with her eyes fixed and strange-looking; while, though he fought against it bravely, and tried to be unmoved, Captain Dyer could not bear it, but walked away.

I was just then drinking some water given me by Lizzy, whose pale troubled little face looked up so lovingly in mine that I felt half-ashamed for me, a poor private, to be so happy--for I forgot my wounds then--while my captain was in pain and suffering. And then it was that it struck me that Captain Dyer was just in that state in which men feel despairing, and go and do desperate things. For of course he felt that as soon as he was out of the way, Miss Ross and the lieutenant had made up matters. I felt that I ought before now to have told him all about what I had heard, but I was in hopes that things would right themselves, and always came to the conclusion that it was Miss Ross's duty to have given the captain some explanation of her treatment; anyhow, it did not seem to be mine; but when I saw the poor smitten fellow go off like he did, I followed him softly till I came up with him, my heart beating with fear.

There was nothing to fear, though: he had only gone up to the roof, and when I came up with him he was evidently calculating about our escape, for he finished off by pulling out his telescope, and looking right across the plain, towards where there was a tank and a small station.

”I think that ought to be our way, Smith,” he said. ”We could stay there for half an hour's rest, and then on again towards Wallahbad, sending a couple of the stoutest men on for help. By the way, we'll try and start a man off to-night, as soon as it's dark. But who will you have to help you?”

”I should like to have Bigley, sir,” I said.

”Will one be sufficient?”

”Quite, sir,” I said; for I thought Measles and I could manage it between us.

Half an hour after, Measles was busy at work, fetching up muskets, with bayonets fixed, from down in the vault, and laying them in order on the flat roof, taking care the while to keep out of sight; and I went to the room where the women were, under Mrs Bantem's management, getting ready for what was to come, for they had been told that we might leave the place all at once.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

I suppose it was my wound made me do things in a sluggish dreamy way, and made me feel ready to stop and look at any little thing which took my attention. Anyhow, that's the way I acted; and going inside that room, I stopped short just within the place, for there were those two little children of the colonel's sitting on the floor, with a whole heap of those numbers of the Bible--those that people take in s.h.i.+lling parts--and with two or three large pictures in each. Some one had given them the parts to amuse themselves with; and, as grand and old-fas.h.i.+oned as could be, they were showing these pictures to the soldiers' children.

As I went in, they'd got a picture open of Jacob lying asleep, with his dream spread before you, of the great flight of steps leading up into heaven, and the angels going up and down.

”There,” says little Jenny Wren to a boy half as old again as herself; ”those are angels, and they're coming down from heaven, and they've got beautiful wings like birds.”

”O,” says little c.o.c.k Robin thoughtfully, and he leaned over the picture. Then he says quite seriously: ”If they've dot wings, why don't they fly down?”

That was a poser; but Jenny Wren was ready with her answer, old-fas.h.i.+oned as could be, and she says:

”I should think it's toz they were moulting.”

I remember wis.h.i.+ng that the poor little innocents had wings of their own, for it seemed to me that they would be a sad trouble to us to get away that night, just at the time when a child's most likely to be cross and fretful.

Night at last, dark as dark, save only a light twinkling here and there, in different parts where the enemy had made their quarters. There was a buzzing in the camp where the guns were, and as we looked over, once there came the grinding noise of a wheel, but only once.

We made sure that the gate and the broken window opening were well watched, for there was the white calico of the sentries to be seen; but soon the darkness hid them, and we should not have known that they were there but for the faint spark now and then which showed that they were smoking, and once I heard, quite plain in the dead stillness, the sound made by a ”hubble-bubble” pipe.

We waited one hour, and then, with six of as on the roof, the plan I made began to be put into operation.

My idea was that if we could manage to cross the north alley, which as I told you was about ten feet wide, we might then go over the roof of the quarters where the mutineers were; then on to the next roof, which was a few feet lower; and from there get down on to some sheds, from which it would be easy to reach the ground, when the way would be open to us to escape, with perhaps some hours before we were missed.