Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/683

Rh  short. It was the richest thing you ever saw; I should have been ready to die with laughing if I hadn't been in such a precious funk. At last I gave the major a hoist, and he just managed to get into the back seat of the cart — enough to lift the mare off her feet almost — Braddon jumped up in front, and I mounted my pony again, and away we all came, and not a soul of us touched. We should have been here yesterday, but early in the morning we saw some horsemen in the distance who looked very like irregular cavalry, so we took shelter for the day in a village. The people were civil enough — perhaps because we were a good-sized party, and well armed; and we got flour and milk, and food for our horses. Braddon wouldn't let a single villager leave the place during the day lest they should convey intelligence of our being there, and at night we came away.

"Braddon gave all the orders, for the major was regularly scared, and poor old Passey was quite knocked up with the heat and the marching. Twice the blessed dog-cart got upset in the dark, going across the country, and once we came to a watercourse, and had to go several miles out of our way to find a place to cross. Such a scene as the country was, too; the villagers up everywhere, and apparently having out all the quarrels of the last hundred years. Fires and firing in every direction. At last, steering by the stars, we came in upon the trunk road, and then it was all plain sailing, and we could push on. We passed through the cantonments, which were silent and deserted — it seemed so strange to be riding in this way past our own houses, and I should have liked to look in at our shop and see that the thieves had left a clean shirt or two, but Braddon would not allow of any loitering, and the moonlight showed plainly enough that all the bungalows had been fired. So here we are, Arty, my boy, safe and sound the whole of us; I have got just ten dibs in my pocket, and not a rag to my name but what I am standing in. I say, by Jove, what fools we were not to invest in revolvers while we had the chance! I wonder if it's possible to get anything to drink."

The coming of the fugitives caused quite a revival of good spirits. The ladies came out with greetings at their escape, and busied themselves with serving out tea and food to the wearied travellers, and Yorke and the others who still possessed wardrobes supplied them with a change of raiment, while the commissioner's washermen were put in requisition to rehabilitate their own; and leaving the new arrivals to rest themselves, a part of the others set out to patrol the city. But there was a revulsion of feeling, when later in the morning two officers of the 82d, the third of the three regiments which had garrisoned Mustaphabad, and which had been detached to Meharunpoor, rode up, faint and weary, to the residency. Their story was nearly the same as that of the officers of the 76th. Their men had risen almost at the same time, but the officers had not been so fortunate. Two at least were seen to fall before they could mount their horses; the others, riding away into the night, got separated, and never came together again. These two only found their way to the rendezvous; the remainder, although looked for all day anxiously, were never again seen by their fellow-countrymen; whether shot by their own sepoys, or murdered afterwards by village marauders, their bodies lay somewhere festering in the sun, among the numerous victims of the times whose precise fate was never ascertained, denied even the rude and speedy funeral rites of death on the battle-field.

 

no news of succour or from distant stations; and the preparations for defence were pushed forward earnestly under the influence of a growing belief that they would be needed. And, in the afternoon, came tidings of a disturbance in the city. The nawab's brother had raised the flag of rebellion, all the so-called troops in the nawab's pay had joined, the minister had been assassinated, and the nawab was a prisoner in his own palace. Falkland rode out again with some dozen of the officers, but nothing could be done. The police had disappeared or fraternized with the rebellion, and as they rode into the main street, the party was greeted with a straggling fire from the end and the houses on both sides, due apparently in part to the new levy, which had gone over with its arms. "Not a single loyal man among them," said Falkland, bitterly, as he gave the order to retire, himself slowly bringing up the rear; "not one honest man except the nawab himself; and it would be hardly wonderful if the poor little man were to go with the tide too, and purchase his liberty by proclaiming himself