Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/121

Rh where can Sparrow be?" "Here," said a voice, — and he came limping up towards them. "I am afraid I have not been of much use, for I got this ball through my ankle before I got up." And the jemadar carried him off on his back to the big house.

But the first person to relieve the garrison of their suspense was Egan, who was seen by the lookers-on — the guards below, the ladies awakened by the firing peering down from the roof — coming out of the darkness, just as, the noise having ceased, they were able to conclude that the post had been won. The thing was done in splendid style, he told Braddon as he came up to the portico, with no loss, he believed. The colonel wanted six hands more and the crowbars and ropes. And the reinforcement, which was waiting for the orders, hurried across.

There remained four hours of darkness in which to strengthen the post for defence, and to execute the loathsome task which had rendered the capture of it necessary. Loopholes were knocked through the back walls of the house at such a height as to be capable of use by standing on the tables which were placed against the walls; the sandbags on the roof were turned round from the west to the east, so as to form a parapet towards the road: and the rampart in front of the inner or west veranda was extended at an angle, and connected at each end with the house, so as to secure the garrison from surprise; and for the rest of the night the work of defence went on briskly, more lanterns being brought over to light up the interior. But the other work to be done was the more laborious; the bodies of the enemy slain in the morning had to be dragged to the well near Sparrow's house from all parts of the grounds, and it could not have been completed but for the help of the sepoys of the garrison. Falkland had not detailed any of them for this duty lest caste feeling might render them unwilling to obey; but the corporal came to Braddon and asked why they were not called on to help; the sahibs could not do it all alone, and could they not be trusted outside the building? So half of them were sent out, and the aid was not at all too much. The castle was almost denuded of defenders during the night, but the enemy were too much cowed to venture on attacking it, although keeping up a desultory but innocuous tire all night in the direction of the noises they heard, as the different working parties were distributed to collect the dead. "This is just like the fellows in the picture clearing the arena for a fresh set-to," observed Spragge to Yorke as they were engaged in dragging one of the bodies by a rope to the well; "but it is rather hard lines that we should be made to do the slavey, as well as the ave imperator morituri dodge. Who could have thought that an ensign in the Honourable East India Company's service would ever be called on to fight his own men one minute, and work as a scavenger the next?"

All through the night the loathsome task went on, the enemy firing constantly, although not venturing within the park wall, while Mr. Hodder and one of the native orderlies dug a shallow grave for poor Braywell's body; and, by morning, only a patch of dried blood here and there on the parched-up surface of the park, to which the early crows resorted in little flocks, as it discussing their disappointment at being balked of their expected feast, betokened the slaughter of the previous day. There still remained, however, to clean the blood-stained floors of the Lodge, which looked after the slaughter of the night a veritable charnel-house. The rebels had destroyed some of the furniture, and smashed the glasses of the pictures hanging on the walls, and a stray bullet had enlarged the nose of a lovelorn swain prominent in one of the engravings; but the damsels whose faces had satisfied Captain Sparrow's aesthetic taste, still looked down on the company with simpering smiles, in horridly grotesque contrast to the blood-stained floor below. Jars of water and brooms were now sent for from the big house, to make, with earth-sprinkling, the place habitable for the picket to be stationed there, of which Passey, who had shown conduct and coolness throughout the defence, was placed in command. Lastly, drinking-water and rations for the day were sent across, for men must eat, even though their feet be damp with rebel gore.

The advantage of this occupation of the Lodge was at once apparent as daylight broke. The back of this house, as has already been mentioned, projected beyond the line of the park wall, which the loop-holes constructed during the night completely commanded; so that when daylight permitted fire to be opened from them, a shot or two sufficed to clear the wall, and the men who were lining it retired, some towards the court-house, and others to the village which bordered the other side of the broad road opposite the Lodge. The effect of this retreat was to relieve the east side of the residency completely