Page:In times of peril.djvu/184

 by the insurgents. The most welcome find to the army were forty barrels of English porter, part of the Sepoys' loot at one of the scenes of mutiny. That night the force encamped at Kulleanpore, twenty-seven miles from Cawnpore.

"So far it has been easy work, except for the legs," Major Warrener said, as he sat with his sons and his officers on the evening of the 13th; "but it will be very different work now. These scoundrels are fighting with ropes round their necks; they know that every Cawnpore Sepoy who falls into our hands will have but a short shrift, and they can't help fighting. Altogether, they have something like five times our force; and as they, have all been most carefully drilled and trained by ourselves, the scoundrels ought to make a good fight of it."

"I don't mind the fighting," Ned said, "so much as the heat; it is awful."

"It is hot, Ned," Captain Dunlop said; "but at any rate it is better for us who sit on horseback than for the men who have to march and carry a rifle and ammunition."

"Do you think we shall have fighting to-morrow, father?" Dick asked.

"We are certain to do so. The pandies have been intrenching themselves very strongly at Dong, which is five miles from here. But this is not the worst part. We know they have placed two heavy guns on the other side of the Pandoo Nuddee, which is a large stream three miles beyond Dong. These guns will sweep not only the bridge but the straight road for a mile leading to it. The bridge, too, has, we know, been mined; and our only chance is to go on with the mutineers, so as to give them no time to blow it up."

The work of the 14th, however, was less severe than