Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/323

Rh advanced for some distance without being perceived, till they came upon a couple of men lying on the ground behind a bush. There was a momentary waving of the line, a couple of dull thuds with the bayonet and a muttered cry, and the line moved on. But this silence could not be maintained. One of the party, as they made their way through the bushes, stumbled and fell; the noise was heard by the enemy's guard; and as the line came up they had started to their feet and were standing huddled in a group, as if irresolute and not knowing what to expect. The bushes were thick and the darkness great, and the assailants were close on their foes before any resistance was made. Then one or two shots were fired, lighting up the scene, a line of a dozen men pressing forward against a much larger body, but irresolute and in disorder. "I am hit," called out Major Peart, falling to the ground. "Fire, and charge!" cried Falkland, discharging his revolver as he spoke, and a volley fired at arm's length was followed by a rush and a hand-to-hand fight. Several sepoys fell, others fled, some fired their muskets; a few sprang on the line sword in hand, and were killed with the bayonets. Two attacked Falkland, who was on the flank, at once, and the sabre of one would have cut him down; but Yorke, who was behind him, parrying the stroke with his bayonet, ran the assailant through. It was real fighting, but lasted only for a few seconds, and then the place was cleared of the enemy, and only the victors remained and the slain, whose bodies, clad in white jackets and waist-cloths, lay scattered on the ground.

One or two of the party made as if to stop and look after their wounded comrade, but Falkland called on them to keep in line and clear the garden first; and the line advanced along the whole length of it, and then wheeling round on their left, turned back and pushed through it again, this time at a greater distance from the house. Three or four times they traversed the garden in this way, gradually working to the boundary-wall and clearing it of enemies. Here and there they came on a white-clothed figure, which flitted away at their approach, sometimes firing at random first. The enemy, taken by surprise and bewildered at the nature of the attack and without leaders, had abandoned the garden almost without resistance, leaving some ten or a dozen of their comrades on the ground. They now began, however, to line the garden-wall, and to send from behind it an ill-directed fire, and Falkland withdrew his party towards the spot where Peart had fallen. But although this could at once be recognized by the bodies of the dead sepoys. Peart was missing. "He must have got up and made his way into the house," said one; and Falkland despatched Spragge to find out if this was so. "We must not leave him alone if he is still outside," he said; "it was one thing to spoil the effect of our advance by stopping to look after the wounded, it is another to desert a wounded comrade;" and the party rested for a few minutes, examining as far as they could in the darkness the nature of the enemy's work behind the trench, which confirmed the suspicion on which the sally had been undertaken. Close to the scene of the fight was the shaft of a well into which one of the party nearly fell; and Yorke descending into it by the ladder which the enemy had left, groped his way, the colonel's revolver in hand, along the gallery running out from the bottom, some thirty feet long already — fortunately for him, deserted.

Presently a messenger came from the house to say that Peart had certainly not returned either to the main building or to the bath-house. " He must have moved a little, perhaps by the way we came," said Falkland; "let us search in that direction;" and they traversed the garden along the hedge up to the starting-point, but without success. The two dead sepoys who were first killed were lying where they had been left, but their own comrade was not to be seen. Then Falkland spread out his party to extend the search, and at last one of them stumbled on something under a bush, which appeared to be the missing officer." He is soaking in blood," said Braddon, stooping down, "and cannot speak." "Has any one a light about him?" asked Falkland, also bending over the body, and trying in vain to discover its condition in the darkness.

A match was produced and lighted, and by the clear flame which rose steadily in the still air, the dress could be recognized as that of Peart, but the features were undistinguishable, so slashed was the face with sword-cuts, while the body, besides being mangled in the same way, was pierced with bayonet-wounds. He seemed to recognize them, but could not speak. "Shall we lift him up and carry him back, sir?" whispered Braddon. "Better call the doctor here," replied Falkland, placing his hand on the clotted fragments of clothes that covered the wounded man's heart. "Yorke, do you go and fetch 