Part 7 (2/2)

Half-a-dozen times over I heard the captain's voice cheering us on, and shouting: ”Gate, gate!” Then I saw the flash of his sword once, and managed to pin a fellow who was making at him, just as we got out at the other end with a fierce rush. Then I heard the captain shout, ”Rally!”

and saw him wave his sword; and then I don't recollect any more, for it was one wild fierce scuffle--stab and thrust, in the midst of a surging, howling, maddened mob, forcing us towards the gateway.

I thought it was all over with us, when there came a cheer, and the gate was thrown open, a dozen men formed, and charged down, driving the n.i.g.g.e.rs back like sheep; and then, somehow or another, we were cut out, and, under cover of the new-comers, reached the gate.

A ringing volley was then given into the thick of the mutineers as they came pouring on again; but the next moment all were safely inside, and the gate was thrust to and barred; and, panting and bleeding, we stood, six of us, trying to get our breath.

”This wouldn't have happened,” says a voice, ”if my advice had been taken. I wish the black scoundrels had been shot. Where's Captain Dyer?”

There was no answer, and a dead chill fell on me as I seemed to realise that things had come now to a bad pa.s.s.

”Where's Sergeant Williams?” said Lieutenant Leigh again; but it seemed to me that he spoke in a husky voice.

”Here!” said some one faintly, and, turning, there was the sergeant seated on the ground, and supporting himself against the breastwork.

”Any one know the other men who went out on this mad sally?” says the lieutenant.

”Where's Harry Lant?” I says.

There was no answer here either, and this time it was my turn to speak in a queer husky voice as I said again: ”Where's Measles? I mean Sam Bigley.”

”He's gone too, poor chap,” says some one.

”No, he ain't gone neither,” says a voice behind me, and, turning, there was Measles tying a handkerchief round his head, muttering the while about some black devil. ”I ain't gone, nor I ain't much hurt,” he growled; ”and if I don't take it out of some on 'em for this chop o' the head, it's a rum un; and that's all I've got to say.”

”Load!” says Lieutenant Leigh shortly; and we loaded again, and then fired two or three volleys at the n.i.g.g.e.rs as they came up towards the gate once more; when some one calls out: ”Ain't none of us going to make a sally party, and bring in the captain?”

”Silence there, in the ranks!” shouts Lieutenant Leigh; and though it had a bad sound coming from him as it did, and situated as he was, no one knew better than I did how that it would have been utter madness to have gone out again; for even if he were alive, instead of bringing in Captain Dyer, now that the whole mob was roused, we should have all been cut to pieces.

It was as if in answer to the lieutenant's order that silence seemed to fall then, both inside and outside the palace--a silence that was only broken now and then by the half-smothered groan of some poor fellow who had been hurt in the sortie--though the way in which those men of ours did bear wounds, some of them even that were positively awful, was a something worth a line in history.

Yes, there was a silence fell upon the place for the rest of that night, and I remember thinking of the wounds that had been made in two poor hearts by that bad hour's work; and I can say now, faithful and true, that there was not a selfish thought in my heart as I remembered Lizzy Green, any more than there was when Miss Ross came uppermost in my mind, for I knew well enough that they must have soon known of the disaster that had befallen our little party.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Whatever those poor women suffered, they took care it should not be seen by us men, and indeed we had little time to think of them the next day.

We had given ourselves the task to protect them, and we were fighting hard to do it, and that was all we could do then; for the enemy gave us but little peace; not making any savage attack, but hara.s.sing us in a cruel way, every man acting like for himself, and all the discipline the sepoys had learned seeming to be forgotten.

As for Lieutenant Leigh, he looked cold and stern, but there was no flinching with him now: he was in command, and he shewed it; and though I never liked the man, I must say that he shewed himself now a brave and clever officer; and but for his skilful arrangement of the few men under his charge, that place would have fallen half-a-dozen times over.

We had taken no prisoners, so that there was no chance of talking of exchange; though I believe to a man all thought that the captain and files missing from our company were dead.

The women now lent us their help, bringing down spare muskets and cartridges, loading too for us; so that when the mutineers made an attack, we were able to keep up a much sharper fire than we should have done under other circ.u.mstances.

It was about the middle of the afternoon, when, hot and exhausted, we were firing away, for the bullets were coming thick and fast through the gateway, flying across the yard, and making a pa.s.sage in that direction nearly certain death, when I felt a strange choking feeling, for Measles says to me all at once: ”Look there, Ike.”

I looked and I could hardly believe it, and rubbed my eyes, for just in the thickest of the firing there was the sound of merry laughter, and those two children of the colonel's came toddling out, right across the line of fire, turned back to look up at some one calling to them from the window, and then stood still, laughing and clapping their hands.

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