Chapter THE TENTH: The Delhi Road (7)

"What wouldst thou, Sherdil? I have had such thoughts, but now that I have seen the sahibs, who am I that I should claim kinship with them? I cannot speak their speech; I know nothing of their learning. It were better, maybe, to remain a Guide and in due time become a dafadar like thee; and then some day go back to Shagpur, and do unto that fat Dilasah as he deserves. I came thence to win freedom for my father; and he is now free, and needs not my help. Him I know, and his people; among the sahibs I am but as an ignorant little child."

"Thou sayest true; yet a stone does not rot in water, and though thou remain among Pathans a thousand years thou wilt never be other than a sahib. Well, what must be, will be. Small rain fills a pond: peradventure when thou hast been a little longer with the sahibs the cup of thy desire will run over."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH

The Storming of Delhi

Nicholson's victory at Najafgarh encouraged the little army on the Ridge as much as it dismayed the enemy. The former needed encouragement. More than a thousand Englishmen were in hospital. General Wilson was anxious and depressed; urged on the one side by Lawrence to strike a blow and save India, on the other fearing to risk an assault which, if it failed, would mean annihilation or at best ignominious retirement. But Nicholson inspired officers and men with confidence. The sight of his great form stalking or riding day after day from end to end of the position, made men feel that when the long-expected siege-train arrived no time would be lost in putting all to the hazard. He went carefully over the ground, deciding with Baird Smith, the head of the Engineers, the sites for the breaching batteries, arranging the composition and disposition of the attacking columns, gaining all possible information about affairs in the city.

In Delhi, meanwhile, it was beginning to be felt that the hour of retribution was at hand. The dissensions between the rival commanders became more acute; one day the king would refuse to see Bakht Khan, holding that he had disgraced himself; the next he would shower compliments on him and assure him of his continued good favour. The army still complained of lack of pay; the princes still plundered the bankers and merchants; the whole city was in a state of terror. Day by day sepoys deserted, going away unarmed to seek their homes. Yet when a postal-runner from the Ridge fell into the rebels' hands, and, being questioned in the king's presence as to what was going on in the camp, declared that the sepoys would never prevail against the English, his outspoken opinion enraged the courtiers, and they sentenced him to death.

At last, on September 4, the siege-train arrived, a long line of heavy guns and mortars drawn by elephants, with miles of bullock-carts loaded with shot and shell and ammunition of all kinds, enough to grind Delhi to powder. During the next week all energies were strained to make ready for the assault. Nicholson and Baird Smith had settled the plan. The most vulnerable part of the wall lay between the Water gate and the Mori bastion. Upon this it was decided to concentrate the artillery fire. On the night of September 6, the first battery was begun just below the Sami-house, a half-ruined mosque six hundred yards from the city, and next day, when it was completed and began to belch its shot on the doomed walls, strong pickets took advantage of the distraction to occupy Ludlow Castle, a large country-house of European make towards the left of the position, and the Kudsia gardens opposite the Kashmir gate and overlooking the river. Each night a new battery was erected and armed, to begin each morning its fierce work. The second battery stood in front of Ludlow Castle, five hundred yards from the walls; the third, consisting of four heavy mortars, was made in the Kudsia gardens, and placed in command of the gallant Major Tombs; the fourth, a triumph of the daring and skill of Captain Taylor of the Engineers, had crept within a hundred and sixty yards of the Mori bastion. Nor were these feats of engineering done without loss. As soon as the rebels perceived what was afoot, they directed a storm of musketry on the heroic workers who toiled day and night in the hot moist air. British and natives, officers and men, soldiers of all arms--for Lancers and Carabineers lent a hand in the work--laboured incessantly with unflinching courage. As soon as one man was killed or disabled, another took his place.

By the night of the 11th, all the batteries were complete, and on the 12th more than fifty guns and mortars were pounding the walls. The din was deafening, and mingled with the roar of the guns was the crash of shattered masonry as the red walls crumbled away. At nightfall every post of vantage on the Ridge was crowded with sightseers, watching the living shell flying through the air like falling meteors. The rebels at first attempted to answer the fire, but the gunners could not hold their posts on the shot-swept ramparts. Parties of rebel horse sallied forth from time to time, as if to charge the batteries; but they were met by showers of grape-shot, or set upon by troops of Hodson's Horse, which drove them back in frantic haste to find cover. Nicholson rode from battery to battery, encouraging the men, taking counsel with Baird Smith, watching the effect of these tremendous salvos that shook the ground.

So the bombardment continued until the night of the 13th. Then the roar suddenly ceased. A thrill of expectation ran through the camp. Captain Taylor had reported that the breaches in the walls were practicable; every man knew that the moment for the great assault was at hand. And in the city men knew it too. The old king spent many hours in his private mosque praying for victory. The traders had all closed their shops, for fear of being carried off to serve at the fortifications. The officers wrangled; there was no commanding spirit like Nicholson among them. Bakht Khan was brave enough, but he was merely a fighter; he had no genius for leadership. On the night of the 12th a proclamation was carried with beat of drum through the streets, commanding all the men of the city, Hindu and Mohammedan alike, to assemble at the Kashmir gate, bringing picks and shovels; the king himself would lead them forth, and they would fall on the infidels and sweep them away. The Hindus paid no heed; but ten thousand faithful Mohammedans, inflamed with fanatic ardour, their religious feelings wrought upon by shrieking fakirs and mullahs, congregated at the gates waiting the arrival of their king. But he came not. Till midnight they remained; then hope died away, and with despairing hearts the great throng dispersed to their homes.

On the night of the 13th, ere the bombardment ceased, every available man in the British force, including men just risen from their sick beds in the hospital, went to his appointed station. The assault was to be made in four columns. A thousand men,--detachments from the 1st Fusiliers, the 15th Regiment, and the 2nd Panjab Infantry--under Nicholson himself, were to storm the breach in the Kashmir bastion, and escalade the walls. The second column, also a thousand strong, under Colonel Jones of the 61st, was simultaneously to storm and scale the Mori bastion. Meanwhile the Kashmir gate was to be blown up, and the third column, under Colonel Campbell of the 52nd, would sweep in through the breach. The fourth column, commanded by Major Reid, who had gallantly held Hindu Rao's house throughout the summer, was to attack the suburb of Kishenganj and enter by the Lahore gate. A fifth column, of 1,500 men, was held in reserve to give support to the first, and Colonel Hope Grant was to post himself on the Ridge, with the cavalry six hundred strong, to prevent the rebels from re-entering the city when thrust out of Kishenganj. The whole force consisted of some 7,000 men.

Ahmed had been looking forward with great eagerness to the fight. The Guides' cavalry, commanded now by Captain Sandford, formed part of Hope Grant's brigade, and they expected warm work at Kishenganj when Major Reid had driven the rebels into the open. But on the evening of the 13th Ahmed was summoned to Nicholson's tent, and learnt, with mingled pride and disappointment, that he was to accompany the first column. When the troops entered the city they would require a guide through its network of streets and lanes, and Hodson had recommended Ahmed for the duty. He was proud at being selected to serve Nicholson, but at the same time disappointed that he was not to go side by side with Sherdil into the fight. Sherdil himself was envious.

"In very truth thou art favoured above all men," he said. "I myself would fain serve the great Nikalsain."

"But thou dost not know Delhi, Sherdil-ji," replied Ahmed.

"True, but by often asking one can find the way. Wah! I will nevertheless fight as befits one of my name, and I promise thee that when the day is done the Purbiyas shall lie around me like grass from the scythe."

Dawn was just breaking on that sultry September 14, when the bugle sounded the advance. The Rifles led the way in skirmishing order; the first column, with Nicholson ahead, marched on steadily until they reached the edge of the jungle. Then the Engineers and the storming party, with their ladders, rose from cover, and sprang forward to the breach near the Kashmir bastion. A storm of musket-shots assailed them as they gained the crest of the glacis; scores of men fell; but the survivors let down their ladders, the British officers ran down them into the ditch, the men close behind, and with a great cheer they rushed up the scarp and into the breach. The sight of their gleaming bayonets was too much for the sepoys. They fled, and Nicholson led his men into Delhi.

Meanwhile, at the Mori bastion, Colonel Jones had been met by a tremendous fusillade that mowed down three-fourths of his ladder-men, and a great number of his storming party. But while his men were still struggling with the ladder, twenty-five of the 8th Foot slid into the ditch, and scrambled up into the breach at a point where attack had not been expected. The rebels were taken aback; Jones seized the moment of hesitation, and in a few minutes the rest of his column were upon the ramparts. They swept on towards the Kabul gate, driving the enemy before them, and a wild whoop rose from the panting men as they saw their flag planted on the summit of the gate.

The progress of the third column had been marked by an act of heroism. The Kashmir gate must be blown open before they could enter. Home, a subaltern of the Engineers, with two British sergeants and a dozen natives, ran forward to the gate under a heavy fire, carrying twenty-five pound powder-bags. A step or two behind came Lieutenant Salkeld with a firing party and a bugler. They ran across the ditch by the planks of the drawbridge, and came unscathed to the foot of the great double gates, the rebels seeming to be scared into inaction by the very audacity of the feat. They laid the bags against the gate; then a terrible fire was again directed upon them. A sergeant fell dead; Home dropped unhurt into the ditch; Salkeld, holding the portfire, was shot through arm and leg, and fell back helpless. He handed the portfire to Corporal Burgess, who was shot dead before he could light the fuse. Carmichael took the portfire and had just lighted the fuse, when he received a mortal wound. Smith, fearing that Carmichael had failed, sprang forward, match-box in hand; but the portfire exploded just as he reached the gate, and he plunged into the ditch to escape the greater explosion. Next moment the gate was shattered to fragments. Now was the bugler's turn. Three times he sounded the advance, but amid the din all around it was not heard. The explosion itself, however, gave the signal, and Colonel Campbell led his men forward at the double, and dashed into the city but a few minutes after the first and second columns had entered it.

The fourth column had meanwhile suffered a disastrous check. The guns which were to accompany it were late in arriving, and when they did come, the gunners were only sufficient to work one out of the four. Major Reid was waiting until others could be found, when he heard the explosion at the Kashmir gate and learnt that a portion of his native troops were already engaged at the Idgah. It was time to be up and doing, so he set off to the attack of Kishenganj, leaving his guns behind. But a musket-ball struck him on the head, and he fell insensible into the ditch. There was some disorder among the men, and a doubt as to who was now in command of the column; and when Reid settled that, on returning to consciousness, by ordering Captain Lawrence to take the command, the fire of artillery and musketry from the unbreached walls of Kishenganj was so heavy as to necessitate the withdrawal of the column to their starting-place at Hindu Rao's house. Hope Grant's cavalry, drawn up to guard their flank when they pressed forward to the city, as had been the intention, were forced to sit their horses for two long hours without a chance of doing anything, under a hurricane of lead and iron from the Burn bastion. Only a third of them were British, but the troopers of the Guides and Hodson's Horse behaved as steadily under this critical ordeal as the British Lancers. In the excitement of action men may face lightheartedly dangers to which they are oblivious: it needs more heroism to sit like sentries at the Horse Guards while balls are flying thick around. By and by they were helped to hold their ground by Captain Bourchier's battery of horse artillery. And not till they learnt that the three storming columns had entered the city, and established themselves there, did they fall back to their bivouac around Ludlow Castle.

In the city the ramparts were in British hands, from the Kashmir gate to the Kabul gate, and Colonel Campbell had pushed on across the Chandni Chauk, and as far as the great mosque, which had been fortified. From it and the surrounding houses a deadly fire was poured upon the British, and Campbell, finding that the support he had expected from the other columns was not forthcoming, fell back upon the Begam Bagh, a vast walled garden, where he bivouacked.

Meanwhile, Nicholson had pressed on along the foot of the walls towards the Kabul gate, where British colours now flew. The plan had been to clear the ramparts as far westward as the Lahore gate, and Nicholson expected that Major Reid's column would by this time have entered the city there. Nothing daunted by Reid's failure, Nicholson determined to push forward without this support.

Between the Kabul and the Lahore gates was the Burn bastion, the strongest part of the defences, whence a galling fire was being kept up both on the cavalry drawn up outside and on the infantry in the narrow streets within. A narrow lane, three hundred yards long, and varying from ten feet to three in width, ran between the Kabul gate and the bastion, lined with mud huts on one side and on the other by the ramparts. The rebels, taking heart at the one success they had achieved in the repulse of the fourth column and the havoc wrought by the Burn bastion, had come crowding back into the lane, the further end of which they defended with two brass guns posted behind a bullet-proof screen.

Nicholson knew that his task would not be finished until the bastion was taken. The enemy would exult if it remained even for a day in their hands. So he called on the 1st Fusiliers to charge along the lane, ordering the 75th to rush along the ramparts and carry the position above. The men, tired as they were, gallantly responded. On they went, reached the first gun, overwhelmed the gunners, then dashed on with a cheer to the second. But ere they reached it a storm of shot--musket-balls, grape, canister, round shot, even stones flung by hand--burst upon them. They recoiled. Again they formed up, again charged up the lane, again captured the first gun, which Captain Greville spiked. Once more they dashed forward to the second gun and the bullet-proof screen. Men fell fast, blocking the narrow lane. Major Jacob, of the 1st Fusiliers, and six other officers were struck down, and Captain Greville was withdrawing the men from what he deemed an impossible task.

But at this moment the great voice of Nicholson himself was heard calling on the men to make one more charge and follow him. He rushed to the front, and turned his back for a moment to the enemy, so that his men might see his face and take courage. A shot from the bastion struck him in the back; he reeled and fell. A sergeant caught him, and laid him in one of the recesses below the ramparts. He was taken back to the Kabul gate, and by and by was placed in a dooli and entrusted to native bearers to carry to the field hospital below the Ridge.

Lieutenant Frederick Roberts, an engineer on General Wilson's staff, had been sent into the city to discover the truth of reports carried to him--that Nicholson had fallen, and Hope Grant and Tombs were both dead. As he rode through the Kashmir gate, Lieutenant Roberts saw a dooli by the roadside with a wounded man in it, but no bearers. The lieutenant dismounted to see what he could do. He found that the wounded man was John Nicholson, deserted by the bearers, lying in helpless agony alone. The bearers had run off to plunder. Four men were found to supply their places; a sergeant of the 61st Foot was put in charge of the party, and the dying soldier was carried to Captain Daly's tent on the Ridge.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH

Eighty to One

Ahmed entered the city with the first column. When, however, Nicholson decided to work along the ramparts and leave Colonel Jones and the second column to push forward into the streets, he ordered Ahmed to act as guide to the colonel. Ahmed led the way through the streets by which he had come on the night when he dropped over the wall. The victorious troops swept them clear of mutineers, but their progress was slow, because the men could not be restrained from plundering as they went.

In due time they reached the great mosque, whence, after waiting vainly for the arrival of the fourth column, Colonel Jones decided to retire to the Begam Bagh. It happened as the troops withdrew, that a determined rush of mutineers down the street in which Dr. Craddock's house was situated, cut off Ahmed and a small group of men from the main body. To force their way through the enemy was impossible without great loss, and Ahmed, perceiving that the little party was in danger of annihilation, led them at the double into the lane that ran behind the doctor's house, to take refuge there until the way was clear. They were only just in time. They scaled the wall of the garden by mounting upon one another's shoulders; and the last four or five were only saved from the mutineers, who came dashing along in pursuit, by the fire of their comrades who had already gained the top of the wall. In the temporary check the last men were hauled up, and dropped safely into the garden.

The group numbered fifteen besides Ahmed, thirteen being sepoys of the 4th Sikh Infantry, and two corporals of the 2nd Fusiliers. It was clear that they would by and by be no better than rats in a trap unless they found shelter in the house, and Ahmed, rapidly explaining to a native sergeant that he knew the place, made a dash with half the party past the fountain to the back door, leaving the rest to deal with any of the enemy who should attempt to drop into the garden as they themselves had done.

Just as he reached the door, happening to glance up at a small window overlooking the garden, he saw the face of Minghal Khan. Next moment he had disappeared. The door was open. Ahmed rushed in, and up the stairs, followed by the men. He reached the landing only to see the darwan leaping down the front staircase. Running along after him, Ahmed looked over. A shot grazed his ear: the darwan had turned at the bottom and fired. Ahmed sprang down five steps at a time, there was a hurry-scurry below, and by the time he arrived at the compound three or four figures were hastening through the front gate, which they shut behind them with a bang.

Ahmed had no idea of pursuing them. He barred the gate, ran back to the men he had left, who had followed him from the house, and went upstairs again, with the intention of passing through the almirah and assuring himself that the doctor was safe. In the surgery he was amazed to see both the doctor and the khansaman, laid on the floor and securely bound. In a moment he cut their bonds.

"Allah is good!" cried the khansaman. "I have even now suffered grievous pangs, and but for thee the sahib would have suffered also."

"How comes this?" asked Ahmed.

"I had taken food to the sahib when Minghal Khan and the darwan came to us with a sepoy: without doubt the darwan had spied me entering the wall. They were armed: the sahib had his pistol, but it is useless striving against fate. We should have been slain, and I bethought myself that the sahibs are in the city, and perchance if we were spared they could save us. While there is life there is hope. And we were bound, and Minghal Khan had us carried here, and demanded to know the place where the sahib's treasure is concealed. Hai! what treasure have we! He had tortured me to loose my tongue, and would have done the same to the sahib but that thou camest. Truly Allah is great!"

"Have we taken the city?" asked the doctor.

"We have entered, sahib, and Nikalsain is here; but there is still much to do, and I heard it said that Reid Sahib has been checked, and the Lahore gate is still to be won."

"Well, then, we must hold this house until the rebels are driven away," said the doctor; "it will be a hard task for us three."

"There are men with me, sahib," said Ahmed. "We make about a score in all."

"Then we can do it. What men are they?"

"Some Sikhs, sahib, and two Englishmen."

"It could not be better. Go and see what can be done to put the house in a state of defence, and come to me here. I am still too weak to do very much, I fear; but I can advise, and the men will obey me."

Ahmed hastened away with the khansaman. In the dining-room they found several large bales of goods ready packed: Minghal had evidently prepared for the inevitable. It was clear, in spite of his professed poverty, that he had managed to amass a good deal of plunder, and he had apparently only delayed with the prospect of adding to his store the treasure which he believed the doctor had concealed in the house. There were two pistols on a shelf: he had not had time to snatch them up as he fled. And in the passage Ahmed discovered a musket and ammunition left behind by one of Minghal's men in the hurry of departure. With these latter Ahmed armed the khansaman, who like most Mohammedans had some knowledge of the gun. The pistols would form an excellent reserve in case of fighting at close quarters.

Ahmed did not suppose that Minghal had gone for good. With three-parts of the city still in the hands of the mutineers there would be no lack of men to help him recover the house that held not only his enemy, but all his property and, as he believed, a hoard of treasure also. Ahmed was considering how best to prepare for a fierce assault when he heard loud shouts from below. Running to the window from which Minghal had looked down on the garden, he saw that several of the enemy had mounted the wall, on the roof of the colonnade, and that some had dropped to the ground on the inner side. But he saw in the same moment that there was no reason for anxiety as to the safety of the back of the house. There was a crowd of about thirty or forty men in the lane outside, but only about half-a-dozen had had the courage to make the escalade of the wall. If the assault had been at all general, the little party inside the garden would have stood no chance; but dropping one by one, and at irregular intervals, within easy reach of the men underneath the colonnade, the besiegers had but a short shrift. Before he could recover himself each man was beset by the man nearest to him, who dashed from beneath the cover of the colonnade and attacked him with his sword. The defenders wisely reserved their ammunition. A man dropping from a height required a fraction of a second to recover himself. In each case, before recovery was possible, one or other of the men had cut his victim down.

Seeing the fate of their companions, the men on the top of the colonnade hesitated to make the jump. They felt themselves, however, secure from attack, and called to their comrades in the lane to join them. A few began to scramble up, but, although the position of the men beneath the colonnade was not visible to the attackers on top, the men themselves could see their enemy through the cracks in the roof where the wood had warped. One of the Englishmen, firing upwards through the roof, disposed of a mutineer, who rolled down the slope of the colonnade into the garden. His comrades, fearing a like fate, hastily vacated the roof and dropped down into the lane, dashing the new-found courage of the men who were about to join them.

Ahmed ran back to the doctor to inform him of what he had seen.

"Post two men at the window, and let them fire whenever a sepoy shows himself," said the doctor.

The khansaman and one of the Sikhs took up their position at the window. Sped by a few well-directed shots, the enemy either evacuated the lane or took shelter immediately beneath the wall, where they were secure.

Meanwhile, as was soon apparent, they had sent off for reinforcements to root out this little island of the Feringhis in the middle of an as yet unconquered locality. The sound of firing could still be heard in the distance, but Ahmed and his companions realized that they were cut off by several hundred yards of streets and houses from Colonel Jones' column, which indeed had by this time probably reached the Begam Bagh, and that the intervening district was without doubt swarming with mutineers. All they could hope to do was to cling to their position until the tide of attack rolled on once more, driving back the rebels, and clearing the way for a sortie. Ahmed would have been even more anxious than he was had he known that Colonel Jones was even then deciding to fall back from the Begam Bagh to a position nearer the walls, where he intended to remain for the night.

The house was square built, slightly higher than the houses surrounding it. On each side there was a more modern residence, detached, and approaching within about twenty feet of it. There was no access to the garden from the front compound except through the house itself.

During the lull which succeeded the first check, the doctor summoned the two English corporals, and told them to consider themselves under his orders.

"All right, your honour," said one of the men. "We're jolly glad to see that one Englishman has been left alive by the Pandies."

"You don't look very strong, sir," said the other, "and don't you put yourself out. We'll give them ruffians what for."

The doctor posted six men in the front compound. There were six in the garden. Three he stationed within the house, so that they could reinforce either the front or the rear, whichever might be the more seriously pressed. Ahmed he kept with him, and when the others had taken up their positions he sent him to the roof to take stock of the surroundings.

In two or three minutes Ahmed had got all the information he required. That the enemy was on the alert he soon found by the shots that whistled about his ears as soon as he was discovered; but by standing a little way back from the parapet he was protected against any musketry fire from below. After a careful scrutiny of his surroundings he hurried below and made his report to the doctor.

"Hazur," he said in conclusion, "we cannot hold the house if the rebels come in sufficient numbers to overcome our men outside. We could not fire on them from the roof, because we should be seen above the parapet, and hit from below; and if we are seen at the windows we shall be marks for the enemy."

"Then we must set about making the house defensible. Can the parapet be loopholed?"

"Yes, sahib; the brickwork is crumbling, and with tools we could easily make loopholes."

"Get a hammer and a chisel, khansaman, and go to the roof with Ahmed Khan. Jaldi karo! Stay, give the three men below tools for making loopholes in the shutters; we may want them by and by."

The khansaman provided one of the men with an auger, and the others with pokers and other kitchen utensils, with which, made red-hot, they could bore holes through the heavy wood of the shutters. Then he followed Ahmed to the roof, where they set to work vigorously to make loopholes in the parapet.

There were still sounds of firing in the distance. At present there was no sign of an attack on the house. Knowing Minghal Khan, Ahmed suspected that he was making quite sure there was no danger of being taken in the rear before attempting an onslaught.

When his work at the parapet was finished, he went down again to the doctor, who sent him to see how the men were getting on with their task at the shutters. Three front windows on the ground floor had already been bored with two loopholes each, and without consulting the doctor he set the men to treat the shutters of the four windows at the back in the same way. The men looked at each other in surprise when he had given this order and gone.

"Who is this Pathan that gives us commands?" said one of them.

"Yea, he speaks even as the sahibs. Shall we do what one of these puffed-up Guides commands us?"

"Not I, for one," said the third man. "The sahib said the front windows; that was his order, given us by the khansaman, who is the sahib's servant. We shall be shamed if we do the bidding of a vile Pathan."

And they laid down their tools and squatted on the floor.

Ahmed meanwhile had hastened to the front door. He found it was made of extremely hard wood and thickly covered with iron studs, forming a sufficiently stout defence against anything short of a battering-ram or a cannon-shot. Coming back through the house to examine the back door and the door leading to the servants' quarters, he noticed the three Sikhs squatting in idleness.

"Dogs," he cried, "did not I say go to the back windows, and do as you did with the front? Why this idleness?"

"We obey the sahibs," said one of the men sulkily.

"Thou son of a dog, take up thy tools at once, or verily thou wilt be sorry."

Ahmed stood over the men, and his voice rang with a tone of command as authoritative as that of their own officers. The Sikh hesitated for a moment, then, to his own surprise, no less than that of his comrades, he took up his tools, rose, and went off slowly to the back of the house.

"You two follow him," said Ahmed.

And the others got up, and went without a word.

Ahmed found that the back doors were slightly made and frail. They would ill sustain a vigorous assault. So he got the doctor to give orders that a quantity of heavy furniture should be collected in the passage leading to them--material for blockading it if the doors were battered down. While perambulating the lower part of the house, he noticed some bales, containing Minghal Khan's possessions, which had been laid against the wall of the compound, in readiness for instant removal. These he carried, with the khansaman's assistance, to the upper part of the house. Then he removed all provisions--a very scanty store--from the servants' quarters, and conveyed the water-pots, filled by the bhisti that morning, to the dining-room. This done, he felt that the garrison was prepared to meet the storm.

But when he returned to the surgery, the doctor gave a further order.

"Find a long plank," he said, "as wide as the stairs--nail two together, if you cannot find one wide enough--and drive nails through it so that their points stand up."

The necessary material was soon found. When it was thickly studded with nails, the doctor bade them make a hole in it, pass a rope through the hole, and tie it to the newel of the staircase. Ahmed guessed the purpose it was designed for; for the present he laid it on its side, so that there was free passage up and down the stairs.

It was a full hour before the attack was resumed. Looking from a window, Ahmed saw the street beyond the compound thronged with rebels, some sepoys, but the majority Irregulars. Ladders were placed against the wall, and the enemy began to swarm up. There was a volley from the defenders collected at the door of the house. Several of the men who had mounted the wall fell back; others, finding themselves unsupported, gave way before the rush of their opponents, who dashed across the compound and thrust their bayonets fiercely upwards. For a moment the top of the wall was clear, but the defenders had fired their pieces, and Ahmed knew that a determined rush by the enemy must swamp the little band. The question was, Would this rush come before the men could reload? They were hard at work charging their muskets. He shouted to the Sikhs in the house to come to the support of their comrades, and then ran to the back to see how things were faring there.

Ahmed was surprised to find things very quiet in that direction. He heard the sound of a pistol-shot from above. The doctor had stationed himself at the back window, which had been partially shuttered, and fired one pistol while the khansaman loaded the other. He was a fine pistol-shot. The wall at the back prevented the mob in the narrow lane from firing at the window. But, as soon as a head showed itself above the wall, the doctor never failed to hit. For a few minutes the mutineers were baffled, but they soon rose to the situation, swarmed into a house on the other side of the lane, beyond pistol-shot, and began to fire at the shuttered window with their muskets. In a minute or two the doctor was forced from his position. A splinter from the woodwork had slightly wounded him; to stay where he was would have been merely to court death.

Once more the enemy in the lane were emboldened to climb the wall and gain the roof of the colonnade. They also swarmed into the gardens of the next houses, and began to mount the wall from three sides. One of the corporals had ordered the men to reserve their fire until the enemy began to leap down into the garden, knowing that half-a-dozen men within were equal to many times their number dropping one by one from the roof of the colonnade. But the situation was now changed. It was not a question of two or three to one, but thirty or forty to one, and a very determined rush by the enemy might cut the men off from the house altogether. Ahmed saw the danger. Rushing across the garden, he called to the Sikhs to make a dash for the doorway. The men instantly obeyed; in the excitement of the moment they did not stop to question who it was that was giving them orders; it was instinctive with them to obey commands delivered in that sharp, decisive way. But the corporal did not understand the words: he only saw the Sikhs rushing back to the house; and he turned on Ahmed and began to ask, in the lurid vernacular of the British soldier, what he meant by interfering. There was no time to answer. The enemy seized this moment to charge. Ahmed with his sword cut down one of the men before he had recovered from his leap: the corporal's bayonet disposed of another. Then the Englishman became alive to the danger, and with Ahmed sprinted across the garden to the house. One of the Sikhs was waiting to slam the door as soon as they got through. Another, just behind, stood with levelled musket, and took a snap-shot at the man immediately behind Ahmed. The mutineer fell, tripping up the man following him, and giving Ahmed the fraction of a second that was necessary to slip in behind the corporal and bar the door. Two other Sikhs at once occupied the loopholes, and in another second or two their fire brought down two of the leading mutineers.

The doctor, meanwhile, had cried to the other men to post themselves at the back windows, the shutters of which also were loopholed, and they too fired among the throng now crowding into the garden from three sides. There were not wanting men of courage among the assailants, and several of them rushed up to the windows with the idea of firing through the loopholes, which were plainly to be seen, if only by the smoke filtering through them; but the inside of the house being higher than the outside, they were unable to reach high enough to get an aim. All they could do was to fire at the shutters, and a scattered volley of bullets thudded upon them. For the most part they embedded themselves in the woodwork. One or two actually penetrated the loopholes, but being fired from below, they failed to hit the men behind, who had retired slightly from the windows to reload.

The doctor shouted to the men to fire alternately, one reloading while the other fired. The mutineers crowding into the garden found themselves exposed to a deadly dropping of bullets of which they themselves could see the fatal results, while they were ignorant of what damage their own fire was doing. There was no cover in the garden except the fountain. Every part of it was commanded from the door or one or other of the windows; the fountain would at best shelter only one or two. They found that every bullet fired by the garrison meant the loss of one of their number. There were several rushes and attempts to batter in the door with the stocks of muskets, or to push the muzzles up through the loopholes, but these always met with the same fate as the first, although one Sikh was badly hit by a splinter.

While the men still kept up their fire, Ahmed rushed through to the front, whence he again heard the din of conflict. There had been another rush up the ladders, met by a fusillade and a charge by the garrison under the British corporal. Again the enemy had been hurled back. Ahmed arrived on the scene just in time to see the last man disappearing from the wall, transfixed by the corporal's bayonet.

Again there was silence both at the back and in front of the house. At the back the crowd of mutineers in the garden had been suddenly seized with panic, their comrades dropping one by one beneath the fire of the garrison without being able to do anything effectual in reply. They had swarmed back over the colonnade, and regained the lane behind or the gardens of the adjacent houses.

Ahmed seized the interval of quiet to hurry up to the doctor, whom he found somewhat shaken by his injury, but perfectly calm. He was, indeed, on the point of descending, to take more direct and effectual command than was possible from the room above.

"I have had a knock," he said, with a smile, "but I think I can manage to crawl down."

"Not so, sahib," said Ahmed. "They are good fighters, the men below, and the English naik is a very good man. But if the sahib would go to the roof perhaps he might call down word of what the Purbiyas are doing. The khansaman and I can help the sahib to go up."

"Chup! I am not so bad as that. Lend me your arm."

He went up, supported by Ahmed. Together they crawled across the roof to the parapet and peeped over. There was a confused hubbub below. In the street at the front of the house they saw Minghal Khan with a group of sepoys, but the greater part of the mob consisted of Irregulars, and their numbers were much increased since the beginning of the attack.

For a time there was a lull; but ere long it became apparent that the enemy were intending a new move. Men appeared on the roof of a house on the far side of the road opposite the doctor's gateway. Others at the same time crowded at the upper windows. A preliminary shot from one of the windows showed that the new position occupied by the enemy dominated the compound in front of the doctor's house, for one of the Sikhs was wounded by it. Indeed, the doctor wondered whether the men could be withdrawn safely from their position underneath the front wall. In running the gauntlet over the exposed portion of the compound, many of them would probably fall beneath the muskets of the enemy in the house opposite. Seeing for a moment that there was no threatening of danger from the direction of the lane at the rear, he bade Ahmed crawl over the roof and send the khansaman, who was acting as orderly, to summon four men from the back of the house. These he ordered to keep up a brisk fire on the men on the roof and at the windows of the house opposite. The doctor's house being higher than the latter, the enemy here were at a great disadvantage. They maintained the musketry duel for a few minutes, then vacated the position; but although the roof of the doctor's house was higher than that of the neighbouring buildings, with the exception of one at some little distance, it was not so much higher as to afford, with its low parapet, complete protection. A fusillade from several buildings at once would make the roof almost untenable, if only by reason of the splinters of brickwork.

That the enemy had realized the weakness of the position on the roof was evident some ten minutes later. Shots began to patter upon the parapet from several directions. The commanding building at a little distance was now occupied. Here the besiegers were on more level terms with the besieged, and bullets began to sing across the roof. First one man and then another was hit, either by bullets or by fragments of the parapet.

"This will never do," said the doctor. "We must go."

They crawled back to the trap-door and descended into the house. But in a moment the doctor saw that the evacuation of the roof would have serious consequences for the gallant band in the front compound. Unless the fire from the opposite house, now packed with marksmen, could be dominated, the next attack on the compound must inevitably succeed. As soon as its defenders showed themselves in attempting to charge the assailants from the wall, they would become the targets for muskets at no more than fifty or sixty yards' range.

"Run down and bring the men into the house," said the doctor.

Ahmed hastened below and gave the order in the sahib's name, adding a caution to beware of flying bullets. The men scampered back along the foot of the wall, crouching low. They were not visible from the opposite house until they had covered half the distance to the door; then the enemy espied their movement and fired a volley. But the men were going rapidly in single file; only one was struck, by a bullet rebounding from the wall, and in another ten seconds the whole band was safe within the house.

The withdrawal was not a moment too soon. There was suddenly a sound of many hammers falling upon steel. The enemy were making an attack upon the walls both at the front and back, driving iron spikes into them with the object of making loopholes. The walls were stoutly built, and it was a full quarter of an hour before the iron bars began to show on their inner side. In half-an-hour at least twenty loopholes had been pierced both in the front and back, and a continuous fusillade was kept up upon the shutters and doors of the house. As soon as one man fired outside, apparently his place was taken by another with a newly-loaded musket, and the new-comer only waited until the smoke had partially cleared to discharge his piece. The woodwork of the house was both thick and hard; only a small proportion of the bullets penetrated the interior; but the range was no more than thirty or forty yards, and there were many good marksmen among the sepoys. Two of the garrison standing behind the loopholes were struck, and one musket was rendered useless. The khansaman ran to inform the doctor, who had the injured men carried upstairs, where he extracted the bullets and bound up their wounds. For a few minutes more the work of loopholing the wall continued, and the defences were battered with an uninterrupted hail of bullets. Gradually the shots found weak spots in the woodwork. Another man was hit, this time through a fissure torn in the shutter by a previous bullet. Every now and again a yell from the outside told that a bullet from the defences had made its way through the loopholes of the wall. These apertures were a good deal larger than those in the doors and shutters of the house, and offered a far better mark. The assailants could afford to lose twenty men to one of the besieged. And when the mutineers noticed that the firing from the house was less in volume owing to the casualties, they became more and more eager. The British columns had retired to their positions near the ramparts; the report had flown through the city that the fourth column had been annihilated; the rumour was spreading that the great Nikalsain himself was dead. The fanatical crowds in the streets still indulged a hope that the British would be repelled; and meanwhile, to Minghal Khan and his mob, it seemed that the little party in the house would ere long fall an easy prey.

The sultry afternoon was drawing on towards night. All sounds of combat elsewhere in the city had ceased. The attack upon the house had as yet failed: but the outworks had been rendered untenable, and the defence must now be confined to the house itself. It seemed that Minghal Khan was satisfied with what he had gained so far; for the firing suddenly ceased, and as darkness sank down upon the scene it appeared probable that the final assault was deferred until the morning. The doctor scarcely expected a night attack. The enemy had already suffered severely, and, numerous as they were, they were not likely to court the heavy losses that an assault in the dark upon strong defences must entail. That he was right was proved as time passed. A close watch was kept upon the house; fires were lighted both front and back; and men could be heard talking; but there was no sign of a renewal of the assault.

The little garrison was glad enough of the respite. They were tired out after the strain of work and fighting during the hot hours of the day. The doctor ordered all the men in turn to act as sentries, one at the back and one at the front, keeping watch while the others slept. It was only at the entreaty of the khansaman that he went to his own bed, and he insisted on being awaked at the first sign of movement among the enemy.

Day had hardly dawned when there came a great yelling from the street, and the rumble of distant wheels. The rumbling sound came nearer moment by moment until it suddenly stopped.

"Go to the roof," said the doctor to Ahmed. His face wore an expression of great anxiety. Ahmed hurried up through the trap-door and crawled to the parapet. He was at once seen from the roof of the loftiest house, and bullets pattered round him; but he looked over and saw--what he had expected to see. A gun had been brought down the street, and stood in the gateway of the house immediately opposite the gate of the compound. There were no horses: evidently the gun had been dragged to its position by men. The gunners were in the act of loading. Ahmed rushed back across the roof, with less caution than before, and was just descending through the trap-door when a bullet whizzed past his left ear, carrying away a lock of his thick hair. He leapt down the steps, and ran to acquaint the doctor with the new peril in which the house lay.

Dr. Craddock was perturbed. Neither the gate of the compound nor the door of the house, nor even the walls themselves, could stand a battering from round shot, and if a breach was once made the house would swarm with the fanatical mutineers, against whom resistance would be vain.

"We must spike the gun, sahib," said Ahmed.

"Impossible! You would rush to your death," replied the doctor.

"Nay, sahib, it must be done; and there is no time to be lost. Give the order, and we thy servants will obey."

The doctor turned, still hesitating, to one of the corporals and explained what Ahmed had suggested: he felt that he could hardly order so desperate an undertaking unless the men would volunteer.

"Spike the gun! Right you are, sir," said the corporal cheerfully. "Them Pandies never can stand a charge. We'll do it, by Jehosopher we will. Blowed if an Englishman is going to be licked by a blooming Pathan."

Ahmed had already seized a hammer and a heavy nail.

"Give them to me, you Pathan," cried the corporal.

"Let him alone," said the doctor. "Get all the men together: nine of you follow the Guide: the rest man the loopholes. Make your rush when they have fired the gun; quick! you haven't a moment to lose."

The whole garrison ran to the front door. Ahmed drew the bolts. The two corporals and seven of the Sikhs stood ready; the rest went to the loopholes. They had hardly taken their places when there was a tremendous roar; the gate of the compound was shattered to splinters; and through the gap and the smoke a crowd of yelling sepoys began to pour into the enclosure. But the men at the loopholes had their muskets ready: at a word from Ahmed they fired a volley, concentrating their aim on the gateway. The foremost of the besiegers fell, and those behind, taken aback by the sudden volley, paused. At that instant Ahmed flung wide the door, and dashed straight for the gate at the head of nine cheering men with fixed bayonets.