It was a couple of hours after when I came to, and became sufficiently
sensible to know that I was lying with my head in Lizzy's lap, and Harry
Lant close beside me. It was very dim, and the heat seemed stifling, so
that I asked Lizzy where we were, and she told me in the cellar of the
house--a large wide vault, where the women, children, and wounded had
been placed for safety, while the noise and firing above told of what
was going on.
I was going to ask about Miss Ross, but just then I caught sight of her
trying to support her sister, and to keep the children quiet.
As I got more used to the gloom, I made out that there was a small iron
grating on one side, through which came what little light and air we
got; on the other, a flight of stone steps leading up to where the
struggle was in full swing. There was a strong wooden door at the top
of this, and twice that door was opened for a wounded man to be brought
down; when, coolly as if she were in barracks, there was that noble
woman, Mrs Bantem, tying up and binding sword-cuts and bayonet-thrusts
as she talked cheerily to the men.
The struggle was very fierce still, the men who brought down the wounded
hurrying away, for there was no sign of flinching; but soon they were
back with another poor fellow, who was now whimpering, now muttering
fiercely:
"If I'd only have had--curse them!--if I'd only had another cartridge or
two, I wouldn't have cared," he said as they laid him down close by me;
"but I always was the unluckiest beggar on the face of the earth.
They've most done for me, Ike, and no wonder, for it's all fifty to one
up there, and I don't believe a man of ours has a shot left."
Again the door closed on the two men who had brought down poor Measles,
hacked almost to pieces; and again it was opened, to bring down another
wounded man, and this one was Lieutenant Leigh. They laid him down, and
were off back up the steps, when there was a yelling, like as if all the
devils in hell had broken loose, and as the door was opened, Captain
Dyer and half a dozen more were beaten back, and I thought they would
have been followed down--but no; they stood fast in that doorway,
Captain Dyer and the six with him, while the two fellows who had been
down leaped up the stairs to support them, so that, in that narrow
opening, there were eight sharp British bayonets and the captain's
sword, making such a steel hedge as the mutineers could not pass.
They could not contrive either to fire at our party, on account of the
wall in front, and every attempt at an entrance was thwarted; but we all
knew that it was only a question of time, for it was impossible for man
to do more.
There seemed now to be a lull, and only a buzzing of voices above us,
mingled with a groan and a dying cry now and then, when I quite forget
my pain once more on hearing poor Harry Lant, who had for some time been
quite off his head, and raving, commence talking in a quiet sort of way.
"Where's Ike Smith?" he said. "It's all dark here; and I want to say
good-bye to him."