Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/424

412 "To C. O. [commanding officer] Mustd. Am marching down with a levy of Sikh horse. Juriana local infantry attempting the same thing have been beaten back with loss of many killed and deserted, and Jordan, commandant, badly wounded. The direct line from here strongly defended, and passage of river difficult, so I shall work round by the north; this is longer route, but only practicable one. Have sent you three despatches before this; news of you difficult to get, and accounts conflicting. Country generally smashed up. Delhi not yet taken, but expected to fall in a few days, when all will come right. My fellows promise well, but are raw at their work. And there is a lot to be done. But hold out for . . . days, and I will be with you . . ."

The latter part of the note was the most illegible of all; the number of days mentioned, the writer's signature, and the date of the letter, could not be deciphered.

This despatch thus entirely corroborated the account brought back by Ameer Khan. The writer was evidently the "Black Feringhee" talked about in the city, but who he was no one at first could guess. The old man could not give the information; he had not come direct from the camp, but had received the letter at a neighbouring village from his son, who said that he had come fifty miles with it in two days, but he fancied the name of the officer was "Carte Sahib." Carte Sahib? who could that be? There was no officer of that name in the army.

The old man was in a hurry to be gone, before it grew light, and refused to be the bearer of a letter out, saying he could not hope to find Carte Sahib and his horse, who were here one day and there another, like a wild elephant. And being rewarded with a handful of gold mohurs — a small fortune for a peasant — which he secreted dexterously in his waist-cloth, the old fellow, making his salaam, crept out and disappeared in the garden.

"Poor old gentleman," said Egan, as he went off, "he is sure to get his throat cut with all that loot about him."

Almost everybody in the garrison was asked to try and decipher the letter. None of the officers, however, could make anything of the signature; but when Falkland showed it to his wife, she at once said it was Kirke, and on the discovery being made, every one was surprised that he had not made such an obvious guess. Kirke was known to be on leave in the hills when the mutiny broke out, and so good a soldier would of course be at once employed in an emergency. "No wonder," said Falkland, "the fame of the 'Black Feringhee' has got abroad; these are the times to show what men are made of. If it is possible to relieve us, Kirke will do it. To think," he continued, looking at his wife, "that a woman's wit should solve in a minute the difficulty we men were all blundering at."

Olivia blushed as he spoke. She could not tell him then how familiar her cousin's handwriting used to be with her.

 

morning broke, and those who had been trying to rest rose sweltering from their beds, and set about making their scanty toilets. Guards were changed, the unsavoury rations were given out and cooked, and all applied themselves in their different tasks to live out another weary day. M'Intyre groaned with the fever of his wounds; Raugh was quieter, and only sang at times. The firing began again from the two guns and went on in desultory fashion; almost every shot now hit the building, no great feat in gunnery, but still an improvement on the practice of the day before.

Thus wore on the dismal morning. Only nine o'clock, and the day was already five hours long, and yet how many hours remained! when suddenly the garrison was aroused from its state of dull endurance.

"That shot must be wide of the mark," said Falkland, starting up from his couch in the drawing-room, on which he was taking a morning sleep, and resting on his elbow, as the report of a gun was heard without the accompanying whistle of the shot: "there goes another," he added, as the second gun was fired off. "Pandy must have come to an end of his cast shot, and be falling back on the hammered ones. If so, we are in luck."

As he spoke, the look-out officer came running into the room, "There is something up, colonel!" he cried; "they are turning their guns at somebody away out on the plain." Falkland hurried up to the roof.

Beyond the lodge, on the other side of the road, was the village surrounded by a mud wall, of which mention has already been made. This village enclosure was nearly square, and with its houses and surrounding trees interrupted the view of the open plain beyond, portions of which, however, could be seen through the gap between the village and the court-house, and again to the south of the village, 