Page:Babar.djvu/80

Rh the arm. I had on a Kálmak mail, and two of its plates were pierced and shivered by the shot. Then he fled and I sent an arrow after him, which caught a foot-soldier who happened just then to be flying along the rampart, and pinned his cap to the wall, where it stuck transfixed, dangling from the parapet. He took his turban, twisted it round his arm, and ran off. A man on horseback passed close to me, rushing up the narrow lane. I gave him the point of my sword on the temple; he swerved over as if to fall, but caught the wall, and thus supported recovered his seat and escaped.

'Having scattered all the horse and foot that were at the gate, we took possession of it. There was now no reasonable chance of success, for they had two or three thousand well-armed men in the citadel, while I had only a hundred, or at most two hundred, in the outer stone fort; and besides, about as long before this as milk takes to boil, Jahángír Mirzá had been beaten and driven out, and half my men with him. Yet such was my inexperience that, posting myself in the gateway, I sent a messenger to Jahángír to bid him join me in another effort. But in truth the business was over. . . We continued waiting at the gate for the return of my messenger. He came and told us that Jahángír was already gone some time. It was no season for tarrying, and we too set off: indeed my staying so long was very unwise. Only twenty or thirty men now remained with me. The moment we moved off a strong troop of the enemy came smartly after us; we just cleared the drawbridge as they reached its town end. Banda 'Ali Beg called out to Ibráhím Beg, "You are always boasting and bragging: stop and let us exchange a few sword-cuts." Ibráhím, who was close to me, answered, "Come on, then; what lets you?" Senseless madcaps, to bandy pretensions at such a moment. It was no time for a trial of skill, or any sort of delay. We made off at our