I don’t know how time passed then; but the next thing I remember is listening to the firing for a while, and then, leaning on Lizzy, being helped to the women’s quarters, where, in spite of all they could do, those children would keep escaping from their mother to get to Harry Lant, who lay close to me, poor fellow, smiling and looking happy whenever they came near him; and I smiled, too, and felt as happy, when Lizzy, after tending me with Mrs Bantem as long as was necessary, got bathing Harry’s forehead with water and moistening his lips.

“Poor fellow,” I thought, “it will do him good;” and I lay watching Lizzy moving about afterwards, and then I think I must have gone to sleep, or have fallen into a dull numb state, from which I was wakened by a voice I knew; and opening my eyes, I saw that Miss Ross, pale and scared-looking, was on her knees by the side of Harry Lant, and that Captain Dyer was there.

“Not one word of welcome,” he said, with a strange drawn look on his face, which deepened, as Miss Ross rose and went close to him.

“Yes,” she said; “thank God you have returned safe. – No, no; don’t touch me,” she cried hoarsely. “Here, take me away – lead me out of this!” she said, for at that moment Lieutenant Leigh came quietly in, and she put her hands in his. “Take me out,” she said again hoarsely; and then, like some one muttering in a dream: “Take me away – take me away.”

I said that drawn strange look on Captain Dyer’s face seemed to deepen as he stood watching whilst those two went out together; then he passed his hand over his eyes, as if to ask himself whether it was a dream; and then, with a groan, he leaned one hand against the wall, feeling his way out from the room, and something seemed to hinder me from calling out to him, and telling him what I knew. For I was reasoning with myself, what ought I to do? and then, sick and faint, I seemed to sleep again.

But this time I was waked up by a loud shrieking, and a rush of feet, and, confused as I was, I knew what it meant: the hole where the blacks escaped – Chunder and his party – had not been properly guarded, and the mutineers had climbed up and made an entrance.

The alarm spread fast enough, but not quick enough to save life; for, with a howl, half-a-dozen sepoys, with their scarlet and white coatees open, dashed in with fixed bayonets, and two women were borne to the ground in an instant, while a couple of wretches made a dash at those two children – Little Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, as we called them – standing there, wondering like, by Harry Lant’s bed on the floor, whilst the golden light of the setting sun filled the room, and lit up their little angels’ faces.

But with a howl, such as I never heard woman give, Mrs Bantem rushed between them and the children, caught a bayonet in each hand, and held them together, letting them pass under one arm, then with a spring forward she threw those great arms of hers round the black fellows’ necks as they hung together, and held them in such a hug as they never suffered from before.

The next moment they were all rolling together on the floor; but that incident saved the lives of those poor children, for there came a cheer now, and Measles and a dozen more were led in by Lieutenant Leigh, and —

There, I am telling you too many horrors. They beat them back step by step, at the point of the bayonet; and a fierce struggle it was – a long fight kept up from room to room, for our men were mad now as the mutineers, and it was a genuine death-struggle; for the broken window being guarded, not a man of about a dozen mutineers who gained entrance lived to go back and relate their want of success.

And can you wonder, when two of those who fought had found their wives bayoneted: Grainger was one of them; and when the fight was over, during which, raging like a demon, he had killed four men, the poor fellow sat down by his dead wife, took her head first in his lap, then to his breast, and rocked himself to and fro, crying like a child, till there was a bugle-call in the courtyard, when he laid her gently in a corner, carrying her like as if she had been a child, kneeled down, and said “Our Father” right through by her side, kissed her lips two or three times, and then covered her face with a bit of an old red handkerchief; and him all the while covered with blood and dust and black of powder. Then, poor fellow, he got up and took his gun, and went out on the tips of his toes, lest he should wake her who would ope her eyes no more in this world.

Perhaps it was weakness, I don’t know, but my eyes were very wet just then, for a soft little hand was laid on my breast, and Lizzy’s head leant over me, and her tears, too, fell very fast on my hot and fevered face.

I felt that I should die, not then, perhaps, but before very long, for I knew that my arm was so shattered that it ought to be amputated just below the elbow, while for want of surgical assistance it would mortify; but somehow I felt very happy, and my state did not give me much pain, only that I wanted to have been up and doing; and at last, Lizzy helping me, I got up, my arm being bandaged and in a sling, to find that I could walk about a little. So I made my way down into the courtyard, where I got near to Captain Dyer, who, better now, and able to limp about, was talking with Lieutenant Leigh, both officers now, and forgetful apparently of all but the present crisis.

“What wounded are there?” said Captain Dyer, as I walked slowly up.

“Nearly every man to some extent,” said Lieutenant Leigh; “but this man and Lant are the worst.”

“The place ought to be evacuated,” said Captain Dyer; “it is impossible to hold it another day.”

“We might hold out another day,” said Lieutenant Leigh, “but not longer. Why not retreat under cover of the night?”

“It seems the only thing left,” said Captain Dyer. “We might perhaps get to some hiding-place or other before our absence was discovered; but the gate and that back window will be watched of coarse: how are we to get away with two severely wounded men, the women and children?”

“That must be planned,” said Lieutenant Leigh; and then the watch was set for the night, as far as could be done, and another time of darkness set in.

It was that which puzzled me, why a good bold attack was not made by night. Why, the place must have been carried again and again; but no, we were left each night entirely at rest, and the attacks by day were clumsy and bad. There was no support; every man fought for himself, and after his own fashion, and I suppose that every man did look upon himself as an officer, and resented all discipline. At all events, it was our salvation, though at this time it seemed to me that the end must be coming on the next day, and I remember thinking, that if it did come to the end, I should like to keep one cartridge left in my pouch.

Then my mind went off wandering in a misty way upon a plan to get away by night, and I tried to make one, taking into consideration, that the quarters on the north side of us now, and only separated by ten feet of alley, were in the hands of the mutineers, who camped in them, the same being the case in the quarters on the south side, separated again by the ten feet of alley through which we returned when Captain Dyer and Harry Lant were taken. On the east was the market plain or square, and on the west a wilderness of open country with hats and sheds. I felt, do you know, that a good plan of escape at this time was just what I ought to make, every one else being busy with duty, and me not able to either fight or stand sentry, so I worked on hard at it that night, trying to be useful in some way; and after a fashion, I at last worked one out.

But I have not told you what I meant to do with that last cartridge in my pouch; I meant that to be pressed to my lips once before I contrived with one hand to load my rifle, and then if the worst came to the very worst, and when I had waited to the last to see if help would come, then, when it seemed that there was no hope, I meant to do what I told myself it would be my duty, as a man and a soldier, to do, if I loved Lizzy Green – do what more than one man did, during the mutiny, by the woman for whom he had been shedding his heart’s best blood; and in the dead of that night I did load that gun, after kissing the bullet; and a deal of pain that gave me, mental as well as bodily, but I don’t think that I need to tell you what that last cartridge was for.

Story 1-Chapter XVIII

I think by this time you pretty well understand the situation of our palace, and how our stronghold was on the north side, close to which was the gate, so hardly fought for: if you don’t, I’m afraid it is my fault, and not yours.

At all events, being at liberty, I went over it here and there, and from floor to roof, as I tried to make out which would be the best way for trying to escape; but somehow I couldn’t see it perfect. To go out from the gate was impossible; and the same related to the broken-out window, as both places were thoroughly watched.

As for the other windows about the place, they were such slips, that without they were widened, any escaping by them was impossible. To have let ourselves down, one by one, from the flat roof by a rope, might have done, but it was a clumsy unsuitable way, with all those children and women, so I gave that up, and then sat down as I was by a little window looking out on to the north alley.

Wearied out at last, I suppose that a sort of stupor came over me, from which I did not wake till morning, to find myself suffering a dull numb pain; but when I opened my eyes I forgot that, because of her who was kneeling beside me, driving away the flies that were buzzing about, as if they knew that I was soon to be for them to rest on, without a hand to sweep them away.

At last, though, as I lay there wondering what could be done to save us, the thought came all at once, and struggling to my feet, I held Lizzy to my heart a minute, and then went off to find Captain Dyer.

It quite took me aback to see his poor haggard face, and the way in which he took the trouble, for it was plain enough to see how he was cut to the heart by Miss Ross’s treatment of him. But for all that, he was the officer and the gentleman; he had his duty to do, and he was doing it; so that, if even now, after losing so many men, and with so many more half disabled, the enemy had made a bold assault, they would have won the place dearly, though win it they must.

That did not seem their way, though they wanted the place for the sake of the great store of arms and ammunition it contained. They wanted to buy it cheap.

I found Captain Dyer ready enough to listen to my plan, though he shook his head, and said it was desperate. But after a little thought, he said:

“There are some hours now between this and night – help may come before then; if not, Smith, we must try it. My hands are full, so I leave the preparations with you: let every one carry food and a bottle of water – nothing more – all we want now is to save life.”

I promised I’d see to it; and I went and spoke cheerfully to the women, but Mrs Maine seemed quite hysterical. Miss Ross listened to what I had to say in a hard strange way; and really, if it had not been for Mrs Bantem putting a shoulder first to one wheel and then the other, nothing would have been done.

The next person I went to was Measles, who, during a cessation of the firing, was sitting, black and blood-smeared, with his head tied up, wiping out his gun with pieces he tore spitefully off the sleeves of his shirt.

“Well, Ikey, mate,” he says, “not dead yet, you see. If we get out of this, I mean to have my promotion; but I don’t see how we’re going to manage it. What bothers me most is, letting these black devils get all this powder and stuff we have here. Blow my rags if we shall ever use it all! I’ve been firing away till my old Bess has been so hot that I’ve been afraid to charge her; and I’ll swear I’ve used twice as many cartridges as any other man. But I say, Ikey, old man, do you think it’s wrong to pot these niggers?”

“No,” I said; “not in a case like this.”

“Glad of it,” he says earnestly; “because, do you know, old man, I’ve polished off such a thundering lot, that I’ve got to be quite nervous about getting killed myself. Only think, having forty or fifty black-looking beggars rising up against you in kingdom come, and pointing at you and saying: ‘That’s the chap as shot me!’”

“I don’t think any soldier, acting under orders, who does his duty in defence of women and children, need fear to lie down and die,” I said.

I never saw Measles look soft but that once, as, laying down his ramrod, he took my hand in his, and looked in my face for a bit; then he shook my hand softly, and nodded his head several times.

“How’s Harry Lant?” he says at last.

“Very bad,” I said.

“Poor old chap. But tell him I’ve paid some of the beggars out for it. Mind you tell him; it’ll make him feel comfortable like, and ease his mind.”

I nodded, and then told him about the plan.

“Well,” he said, as he slowly and thoughtfully polished his gun-barrel, “it might do, and it mightn’t. Seems a rum dodge; but, anyhow, we might try.”

“I shall want you to help make the bridge,” I says.

“All right, matey; but I don’t, somehow, like leaving the beggars all that ammunition.”

And then he loaded his rifle very thoughtfully, but only to rouse up directly after, for the mutineers began firing again; and Captain Dyer giving the order, our men replied swift and fast at every black face that showed itself for an instant.

That was a day: hot, so that everything you went near seemed burning. The walls even sent forth a heat of their own; and if it hadn’t been for the chatties down below, we should have had to give up, for the tank was now completely dried, and the flies buzzing about its mud-caked bottom. But the women went round from man to man with water and biscuit, so that no one left his post; and every time the black scoundrels tried to make a lodgment near the gate, half were shot down, and the rest glad enough to get back into shelter.

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 glass, 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 glass 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 glass, 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 1-Chapter XIX

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 shilling 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-fashioned 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 Cock 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-fashioned as could be, and she says:

“I should think it’s toz they were moulting.”

I remember wishing 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.

The plan was, I know, desperate, but it seemed our only chance, and, as you well know, desperate ventures will sometimes succeed when the most carefully arranged plots fail. At all events, Captain Dyer took it up, and then, under my directions, a couple of muskets were taken at a time, and putting them muzzle to muzzle, the bayonet of each was thrust down the other’s barrel, which saved lashing them together, and gave us a sort of spar about ten feet long, and this was done with about fifty.

I told you that there was a tree grew up in the centre of the alley, – a stunty, short-boughed tree, and to this Measles laid one of the double muskets, feeling for a bough to rest it on in the darkness, after listening whether there was any one below; then he laid more and more, till, with a mattress laid upon them, he formed a bridge, over which he boldly crept to the tree, where, with the lashings he had taken, he bound a couple more muskets horizontal, and then shifted the others. He arranged them all so that the butts of one end rested on the roof of the palace; the butts at the other end were across those he had bound pretty level in the tree. Then more and more were laid across, and a couple of thin straw mattresses on them; and though it took a tremendously long time through Measles fumbling in the dark, it was surprising what a firm bridge that made as far as the tree.

The other half was made in just the same fashion, and much more easily. Mattresses were laid on it; and there, thirty feet above the ground, we had a tolerably firm bridge, one that, though very irregular, a man could cross with ease, creeping on his hands and knees; but then there were the women, children, and poor Harry Lant.

Captain Dyer thought it would be better to say nothing to them about it, but to bring them all quietly up at the last minute, so as to give them no time for thought and fear; and then, the last preparation being made, and a rough short ladder, eight feet long, Measles and I had contrived, being carried over and planted at the end of the other quarters, reaching well down to the next roof, we prepared for a start.

Measles and Captain Dyer went over with the ladder, and reported no sentries visible, the bridge pretty firm, and nothing apparently to fear, when it was decided that Harry Lant should be taken over first – Measles volunteering to take him on his back and crawl over – then the women and children were to be got over, and we were to follow.

I know it was hard work for him, but Harry Lant never gave a groan, but let them lash his hands together with a handkerchief, so that Measles put his head through the poor fellow’s arms, for there was no trusting to Harry’s feeble hold.

“Now then, in silence,” says Captain Dyer; “and you, Lieutenant Leigh, get up the women and children. But each child is to be taken by a man, who is to be ready to gag the little thing if it utters a sound. Recollect, the lives of all depend on silence. Now, Bigley, forward!”

“Wait till I spit in my hands, captain,” says Measles, though what he wanted to spit in his hands for, I don’t know, without it was from use, being such a spitting man.

But spit in his hands he did, and then, with Harry on his back, he was down on his hands and knees, crawling on to the mattress very slowly, and you could hear the bayonets creaking and gritting, as they played in and out of the musket-barrels; but they held firm, and the next minute Measles was as far as the tree, but only to get his load hitched somehow in a ragged branch, when there was a loud crack as of dead wood snapping, a struggle, and Measles growled out an oath – he would swear, that fellow would, in spite of all Mrs Bantem said, so you mustn’t be surprised at his doing it then.

We all stopped and crouched there, with our hearts beating horribly; for it seemed that the next moment we should hear a dull, heavy crash; but instead, there came the sharp fall of a dead branch, and at the same moment there were voices at the end of the alley.

If Captain Dyer dared to have spoken, he would have called “Halt!” but he was silent; but Measles must have heard the voices, for he never moved, while we listened minute after minute, our necks just over the edge of the roof, till what appeared to be three of the enemy crept cautiously along through the alley, till one tripped and fell over the dead bough that must have been lying right in their way.

Then there was a horrible silence, during which we felt that it was all over with the plan – that the enemy must look up and see the bridge, and bring down those who would attack us with renewed fury.

But the next minute there came a soft whisper or two, a light rustling, and, directly after, we knew that the alley was empty.

It seemed useless to go on now; but after five minutes’ interval, Captain Dyer determined to pursue the plan, just as Measles came back panting to announce Harry Lant as lying on the roof beyond the officers’ quarters.

“And you’ve no idea what a weight the little chap is,” says Measles to me. “Now, who’s next?”

No one answered; and Lieutenant Leigh stepped forward leading Miss Ross. He was about to carry her over; but she thrust him back, and after scanning the bridge for a few moments, she asked for one of the children, and so as to have no time lost, the little boy, fast asleep, bless him! was put in her arms, when brave as brave, if she did not step boldly on to the trembling way, and walk slowly across.

Then Joe Bantem was sent – though he hung back for his wife, till she ordered him on – to go over with a soldier’s child on his back; and he was followed by a couple more.

Next came Mrs Bantem, with Mrs Colonel Maine, and the stout-hearted woman stood as if hesitating for a minute as to how to go, when catching up the colonel’s wife, as if she had been a child, she stepped on to the bridge, and two or three men held the butts of the muskets, for it seemed as if they could not bear the strain.

But though my heart seemed in my mouth, and the creaking was terrible, she passed safely over, and it was wonderful what an effect that had on the rest.

“If it’ll bear that, it’ll bear anything,” says some one close to me; and they went on, one after the other, for the most part crawling, till it came to me and Lizzy Green.

“You’ll go now,” I said; but she would not leave me, and we crept on together, till a bough of the tree hindered us, when I made her go first, and a minute after we were hand-in-hand upon the roof of the officers’ quarters.

The others followed, Captain Dyer coming last, when, seeing me, he whispered: “Where’s Bigley?” of course meaning Measles.

I looked round, but it was too dark to distinguish one face from another. I had not seen him for the last quarter of an hour – not since he had asked me if I had any matches, and I had passed him half-a-dozen from my tobacco-pouch.

I asked first one, and then another, but nobody had seen Measles; and under the impression that he must have joined Harry Lant, we cautiously walked along the roof, right over the heads of our enemies; for from time to time we could hear beneath our feet the low buzzing sound of voices, and more than once came a terrible catching of the breath, as one of the children whispered or spoke.

It seemed impossible, even now, that we could escape, and I was for proposing to Captain Dyer to risk the noise, and have the bridge taken down, so as to hold the top of the building we were on as a last retreat; but I was stopped from that by Measles coming up to me, when I told him Captain Dyer wanted him, and he crept away once more.

We got down the short ladder in safety, and then crossed a low building, to pass down the ladder on to another, which fortunately for us was empty; and then, with a little contriving and climbing, we dropped into a deserted street of the place, and all stood huddled together, while Captain Dyer and Lieutenant Leigh arranged the order of march.

And that was no light matter; but a litter was made of the short ladder, and Harry Lant laid upon it; the women and children placed in the middle; the men were divided; and the order was given in a low tone to march, and we began to walk right away into the darkness, down the straggling street; but only for the advance guard to come back directly, and announce that they had stumbled upon an elephant picketed with a couple of camels.

“Any one with them?” said Captain Dyer.

“Could not see a soul, sir,” said Joe Bantem, for he was one of the men.

“Grenadiers, half-left,” said Captain Dyer; “forward!” and once more we were in motion, tramp, tramp, tramp, but quite softly; Lieutenant Leigh at the rear of the first party, so as to be with Miss Ross, and Captain Dyer in the rear of all, hiding, poor fellow, all he must have felt, and seeming to give up every thought to the escape, and that only.