Page:Wee Willie Winkie, and other stories (1890).djvu/25

 Rh there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the Colour Sergeant of E. Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted.

"He couldn't fall off! S'elp me, 'e couldn't fall off," blubbered a drummer boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' may be those Pathans have got 'im. For the love of Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the river."

"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E. Company, double out to the river—sharp!"

So E. Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie and the Colonel finally overtook E. Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed.

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a look-out fired two shots.

"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! The pulton are out already, and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!"

The men waited for an instant, and then as another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared.

"The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie confidently to Miss Allardyce, "and its all wight. Don't cwy!"

He needed the advice himself, for, ten minutes later, when his father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce's lap.