gain the roof of the colonnade. They also swarmed into the gardens of
the next houses, and began to mount the wall from three sides. One of
the corporals had ordered the men to reserve their fire until the enemy
began to leap down into the garden, knowing that half-a-dozen men within
were equal to many times their number dropping one by one from the roof
of the colonnade. But the situation was now changed. It was not a
question of two or three to one, but thirty or forty to one, and a very
determined rush by the enemy might cut the men off from the house
altogether. Ahmed saw the danger. Rushing across the garden, he called
to the Sikhs to make a dash for the doorway. The men instantly obeyed;
in the excitement of the moment they did not stop to question who it was
that was giving them orders; it was instinctive with them to obey
commands delivered in that sharp, decisive way. But the corporal did not
understand the words: he only saw the Sikhs rushing back to the house;
and he turned on Ahmed and began to ask, in the lurid vernacular of the
British soldier, what he meant by interfering. There was no time to
answer. The enemy seized this moment to charge. Ahmed with his sword cut
down one of the men before he had recovered from his leap: the
corporal's bayonet disposed of another. Then the Englishman became alive
to the danger, and with Ahmed sprinted across the garden to the house.
One of the Sikhs was waiting to slam the door as soon as they got
through. Another, just behind, stood with levelled musket, and took a
snap-shot at the man immediately behind Ahmed. The mutineer fell,
tripping up the man following him, and giving Ahmed the fraction of a
second that was necessary to slip in behind the corporal and bar the
door. Two other Sikhs at once occupied the loopholes, and in another
second or two their fire brought down two of the leading mutineers.
The doctor, meanwhile, had cried to the other men to post themselves at
the back windows, the shutters of which also were loopholed, and they
too fired among the throng now crowding into the garden from three
sides. There were not wanting men of courage among the assailants, and
several of them rushed up to the windows with the idea of firing through
the loopholes, which were plainly to be seen, if only by the smoke
filtering through them; but the inside of the house being higher than
the outside, they were unable to reach high enough to get an aim. All
they could do was to fire at the shutters, and a scattered volley of
bullets thudded upon them. For the most part they embedded themselves in
the woodwork. One or two actually penetrated the loopholes, but being
fired from below, they failed to hit the men behind, who had retired
slightly from the windows to reload.
The doctor shouted to the men to fire alternately, one reloading while
the other fired. The mutineers crowding into the garden found themselves
exposed to a deadly dropping of bullets of which they themselves could
see the fatal results, while they were ignorant of what damage their own
fire was doing. There was no cover in the garden except the fountain.
Every part of it was commanded from the door or one or other of the
windows; the fountain would at best shelter only one or two. They found
that every bullet fired by the garrison meant the loss of one of their
number. There were several rushes and attempts to batter in the door
with the stocks of muskets, or to push the muzzles up through the
loopholes, but these always met with the same fate as the first,
although one Sikh was badly hit by a splinter.
While the men still kept up their fire, Ahmed rushed through to the
front, whence he again heard the din of conflict. There had been another
rush up the ladders, met by a fusillade and a charge by the garrison
under the British corporal. Again the enemy had been hurled back. Ahmed
arrived on the scene just in time to see the last man disappearing from
the wall, transfixed by the corporal's bayonet.
Again there was silence both at the back and in front of the house. At
the back the crowd of mutineers in the garden had been suddenly seized
with panic, their comrades dropping one by one beneath the fire of the
garrison without being able to do anything effectual in reply. They had
swarmed back over the colonnade, and regained the lane behind or the
gardens of the adjacent houses.
Ahmed seized the interval of quiet to hurry up to the doctor, whom he
found somewhat shaken by his injury, but perfectly calm. He was, indeed,
on the point of descending, to take more direct and effectual command
than was possible from the room above.
"I have had a knock," he said, with a smile, "but I think I can manage
to crawl down."
"Not so, sahib," said Ahmed. "They are good fighters, the men below, and
the English naik is a very good man. But if the sahib would go to the
roof perhaps he might call down word of what the Purbiyas are doing. The
khansaman and I can help the sahib to go up."
"Chup! I am not so bad as that. Lend me your arm."
He went up, supported by Ahmed. Together they crawled across the roof to
the parapet and peeped over. There was a confused hubbub below. In the
street at the front of the house they saw Minghal Khan with a group of
sepoys, but the greater part of the mob consisted of Irregulars, and
their numbers were much increased since the beginning of the attack.
For a time there was a lull; but ere long it became apparent that the
enemy were intending a new move. Men appeared on the roof of a house on
the far side of the road opposite the doctor's gateway. Others at the
same time crowded at the upper windows. A preliminary shot from one of
the windows showed that the new position occupied by the enemy dominated
the compound in front of the doctor's house, for one of the Sikhs was
wounded by it. Indeed, the doctor wondered whether the men could be
withdrawn safely from their position underneath the front wall. In
running the gauntlet over the exposed portion of the compound, many of
them would probably fall beneath the muskets of the enemy in the house
opposite. Seeing for a moment that there was no threatening of danger
from the direction of the lane at the rear, he bade Ahmed crawl over the
roof and send the khansaman, who was acting as orderly, to summon four
men from the back of the house. These he ordered to keep up a brisk fire
on the men on the roof and at the windows of the house opposite. The
doctor's house being higher than the latter, the enemy here were at a
great disadvantage. They maintained the musketry duel for a few minutes,
then vacated the position; but although the roof of the doctor's house
was higher than that of the neighbouring buildings, with the exception
of one at some little distance, it was not so much higher as to afford,
with its low parapet, complete protection. A fusillade from several
buildings at once would make the roof almost untenable, if only by
reason of the splinters of brickwork.
That the enemy had realized the weakness of the position on the roof was
evident some ten minutes later. Shots began to patter upon the parapet
from several directions. The commanding building at a little distance
was now occupied. Here the besiegers were on more level terms with the
besieged, and bullets began to sing across the roof. First one man and
then another was hit, either by bullets or by fragments of the parapet.
"This will never do," said the doctor. "We must go."
They crawled back to the trap-door and descended into the house. But in
a moment the doctor saw that the evacuation of the roof would have
serious consequences for the gallant band in the front compound. Unless
the fire from the opposite house, now packed with marksmen, could be
dominated, the next attack on the compound must inevitably succeed. As
soon as its defenders showed themselves in attempting to charge the
assailants from the wall, they would become the targets for muskets at
no more than fifty or sixty yards' range.
"Run down and bring the men into the house," said the doctor.
Ahmed hastened below and gave the order in the sahib's name, adding a
caution to beware of flying bullets. The men scampered back along the
foot of the wall, crouching low. They were not visible from the opposite
house until they had covered half the distance to the door; then the
enemy espied their movement and fired a volley. But the men were going
rapidly in single file; only one was struck, by a bullet rebounding from
the wall, and in another ten seconds the whole band was safe within the
house.
The withdrawal was not a moment too soon. There was suddenly a sound of
many hammers falling upon steel. The enemy were making an attack upon
the walls both at the front and back, driving iron spikes into them with
the object of making loopholes. The walls were stoutly built, and it was
a full quarter of an hour before the iron bars began to show on their
inner side. In half-an-hour at least twenty loopholes had been pierced
both in the front and back, and a continuous fusillade was kept up upon
the shutters and doors of the house. As soon as one man fired outside,
apparently his place was taken by another with a newly-loaded musket,
and the new-comer only waited until the smoke had partially cleared to
discharge his piece. The woodwork of the house was both thick and hard;
only a small proportion of the bullets penetrated the interior; but the
range was no more than thirty or forty yards, and there were many good
marksmen among the sepoys. Two of the garrison standing behind the
loopholes were struck, and one musket was rendered useless. The
khansaman ran to inform the doctor, who had the injured men carried
upstairs, where he extracted the bullets and bound up their wounds. For
a few minutes more the work of loopholing the wall continued, and the
defences were battered with an uninterrupted hail of bullets. Gradually
the shots found weak spots in the woodwork. Another man was hit, this
time through a fissure torn in the shutter by a previous bullet. Every
now and again a yell from the outside told that a bullet from the
defences had made its way through the loopholes of the wall. These
apertures were a good deal larger than those in the doors and shutters
of the house, and offered a far better mark. The assailants could afford
to lose twenty men to one of the besieged. And when the mutineers
noticed that the firing from the house was less in volume owing to the
casualties, they became more and more eager. The British columns had
retired to their positions near the ramparts; the report had flown
through the city that the fourth column had been annihilated; the rumour
was spreading that the great Nikalsain himself was dead. The fanatical
crowds in the streets still indulged a hope that the British would be
repelled; and meanwhile, to Minghal Khan and his mob, it seemed that the
little party in the house would ere long fall an easy prey.
The sultry afternoon was drawing on towards night. All sounds of combat
elsewhere in the city had ceased. The attack upon the house had as yet
failed: but the outworks had been rendered untenable, and the defence
must now be confined to the house itself. It seemed that Minghal Khan
was satisfied with what he had gained so far; for the firing suddenly
ceased, and as darkness sank down upon the scene it appeared probable
that the final assault was deferred until the morning. The doctor
scarcely expected a night attack. The enemy had already suffered
severely, and, numerous as they were, they were not likely to court the
heavy losses that an assault in the dark upon strong defences must
entail. That he was right was proved as time passed. A close watch was
kept upon the house; fires were lighted both front and back; and men
could be heard talking; but there was no sign of a renewal of the
assault.
The little garrison was glad enough of the respite. They were tired out
after the strain of work and fighting during the hot hours of the day.
The doctor ordered all the men in turn to act as sentries, one at the
back and one at the front, keeping watch while the others slept. It was
only at the entreaty of the khansaman that he went to his own bed, and
he insisted on being awaked at the first sign of movement among the
enemy.
Day had hardly dawned when there came a great yelling from the street,
and the rumble of distant wheels. The rumbling sound came nearer moment
by moment until it suddenly stopped.
"Go to the roof," said the doctor to Ahmed. His face wore an expression
of great anxiety. Ahmed hurried up through the trap-door and crawled to
the parapet. He was at once seen from the roof of the loftiest house,
and bullets pattered round him; but he looked over and saw--what he had
expected to see. A gun had been brought down the street, and stood in
the gateway of the house immediately opposite the gate of the compound.
There were no horses: evidently the gun had been dragged to its position
by men. The gunners were in the act of loading. Ahmed rushed back across
the roof, with less caution than before, and was just descending through
the trap-door when a bullet whizzed past his left ear, carrying away a
lock of his thick hair. He leapt down the steps, and ran to acquaint the
doctor with the new peril in which the house lay.
Dr. Craddock was perturbed. Neither the gate of the compound nor the
door of the house, nor even the walls themselves, could stand a
battering from round shot, and if a breach was once made the house would
swarm with the fanatical mutineers, against whom resistance would be
vain.
"We must spike the gun, sahib," said Ahmed.
"Impossible! You would rush to your death," replied the doctor.
"Nay, sahib, it must be done; and there is no time to be lost. Give the
order, and we thy servants will obey."
The doctor turned, still hesitating, to one of the corporals and
explained what Ahmed had suggested: he felt that he could hardly order
so desperate an undertaking unless the men would volunteer.
"Spike the gun! Right you are, sir," said the corporal cheerfully. "Them
Pandies never can stand a charge. We'll do it, by Jehosopher we will.
Blowed if an Englishman is going to be licked by a blooming Pathan."
Ahmed had already seized a hammer and a heavy nail.
"Give them to me, you Pathan," cried the corporal.
"Let him alone," said the doctor. "Get all the men together: nine of you
follow the Guide: the rest man the loopholes. Make your rush when they
have fired the gun; quick! you haven't a moment to lose."
The whole garrison ran to the front door. Ahmed drew the bolts. The two
corporals and seven of the Sikhs stood ready; the rest went to the
loopholes. They had hardly taken their places when there was a
tremendous roar; the gate of the compound was shattered to splinters;
and through the gap and the smoke a crowd of yelling sepoys began to
pour into the enclosure. But the men at the loopholes had their muskets
ready: at a word from Ahmed they fired a volley, concentrating their aim
on the gateway. The foremost of the besiegers fell, and those behind,
taken aback by the sudden volley, paused. At that instant Ahmed flung
wide the door, and dashed straight for the gate at the head of nine
cheering men with fixed bayonets.
Pandy never waited for the touch of cold steel. There was a wild
stampede from the gateway. The sepoys tumbled over one another in their
panic. While the men behind were pushing on, those in front were pushing
back. The crowd fell apart as the cheering band drove through them, and
made a path through which Ahmed and the two corporals headed the rest
towards the gun. The gunners stood as if paralyzed; before they could
flee the bayonets had done their fell work.
Ahmed was on the point of spiking the gun when a sudden inspiration
seized him. The gun had been partly prepared for the next charge. Round
shot and grape lay ready. The mutineers up the street, charged by the
Sikhs, were huddled together like a flock of sheep chased by a dog, and
the space around the gun was clear. Ahmed dropped his hammer, and began
to ram in a charge of grape.
"Right you are!" said one of the corporals, divining his intention.
"We'll slew her round. Come on, Bill."
The two corporals with Ahmed's assistance rammed in the charge, and
slewed the gun round so that it pointed down the street, where the crowd
was already beginning to surge back. Then Ahmed snatched up the burning
portfire that lay on the ground and applied it to the touch-hole.
There was a babel of yells from the throng as the shot sped among them.
In so dense a crowd the havoc was terrific. The instant the gun was
fired, before the smoke had cleared away, Ahmed drove his spike into the
touch-hole, and raising his voice to its highest pitch shouted to the
Sikhs to return. In a few moments the whole party was dashing back
through the gateway into the compound. Bullets sang about their ears,
fired from the neighbouring houses; but the smoke still lay thick over
the street, giving them partial protection. One man was struck; him
Ahmed and another caught up and carried between them. They were the last
to reach the door, and had not entered when the crowd, frantic with rage
at their losses and the spoiling of their weapon, came surging in at the
gate. The door was shut just as the first of them, not stopping to fire,
was making a fierce cut at Ahmed.
Breathless but exultant at the success of their desperate enterprise,
Ahmed and the little party went to the loopholes and fired a volley at
the assailants which again daunted them. But now a strident voice was
heard among the shouts outside. Fierce yells answered it, growing in
volume every moment.
"A fakir!" cried a Sikh.
"I've heard the like of that screeching in Seven Dials of a Saturday
night," said one of the corporals.
"And, by gum, it means mischief," said the other. "He'll work those
Pandies up into a perfect fury, Jack, and they'll be that mad they'd
charge into hell."
"Well, screeches won't break down the door."
"No, but a battering-ram will, and dash me if the beggars haven't got
one."
A score of mutineers were hauling a heavy log through the gateway. At
the same moment there was a great uproar from the rear of the house. The
attack in that quarter had not been resumed since the previous night,
the rebels having apparently determined to concentrate on the front,
trusting to win an easy victory with the aid of their gun. Owing to the
casualties among the defenders, only ten men were now available, and the
division of forces necessary to cope with simultaneous attacks in both
front and rear laid a heavy handicap upon them. Half ran to the back to
repel the assault. The furniture had already been massed against the
door, and Ahmed saw with relief that by firing through the loopholes in
the shutters the attackers could for the present be held off. It was
otherwise in front. Several of the men carrying the log were shot down,
but others took their places before the defenders could reload, and the
ram was launched against the timber. The whole building trembled under
the impact, and though the door for the moment held fast, it was plain
that it could not long withstand such a battery.
The doctor was alive to the situation. He called to the men to prepare
for a rush up the staircase, bidding one of them get ready the
nail-studded plank for laying lengthwise on the stairs. While the men
were still holding their position at the loopholes, they heard the sound
of wrenching woodwork above, and in a few minutes there was a large gap
in the ceiling of the hall. Immediately afterwards there came from above
the sharp sound of hammers on metal. Ahmed could not guess what the
doctor and the khansaman were doing, but felt sure that whatever it was
the defence would gain by it.
Meanwhile the battering on the front door had at last loosened the
hinges; it was time to retire. Ahmed and the five men with him went a
few steps up the staircase. Then he laid the plank on the treads, so
that none of the enemy could mount without crossing five feet of sharp
iron points. The massive timber withstood several more assaults before
there was a final crash, and it hung half open, disclosing a part of the
yelling crowd outside. Ahmed and his comrades were only dimly visible to
the besiegers, while the latter in the open courtyard were in full view
of the besieged. A second after the door burst open the six men on the
stairs fired together. There was no chance of missing the densely packed
throng--every shot claimed its victim. For a second or two the crowd
recoiled. The little firing party ran up to the landing. Then the
doctor, limping to the top of the stairs, gave directions to the
khansaman to pour down the plank the contents of a huge blue bottle.
Shots were whistling round them from the muskets of the rebels who had
swarmed into the hall, but neither showed the slightest concern. Kaluja
had just finished his work when, led by the shrieking fakir, the mob
made a rush for the stairway. Several men, heedless of the nails,
scrambled up for a foot or two. Then with shrill cries of rage and pain
they jumped backwards, overturning their comrades who were pressing on
behind them. The plank was smoking with the strong acid which the
khansaman had poured upon it. Most of the mob were barefooted, and even
their tough soles could not withstand the effects of the burning liquid,
the fumes from which set those above choking.
The hall was now packed tight with yelling rebels, so closely pressed
together that to use their muskets was impossible. They had no escape
from the shots fired by the men above as fast as they could reload. Then
a new terror was added to the scene. Ahmed now saw the meaning of the
knocking he had heard. Over the gap in the floor the khansaman had laid
the doctor's sitz-bath, in the bottom of which he had pierced a number
of holes. He was now engaged in emptying the contents of his master's
bottles into the bath, the doctor adding water from time to time. It
would have puzzled the most expert chemist to define the chemical
composition which fell in a steady shower on the heads of the
panic-stricken mutineers. The liquid fizzed and smoked, and changed
colour like a chameleon--now green, now yellow, now brown, now an
indescribable mixture of tints. There was only one desire among the
discomfited enemy: to escape from this cockpit in which they suffered
pangs due to the hakim's mysterious art as well as to the more familiar
weapons of war. Pushing, shouting, scrambling over each other, they
forced their way out into the compound, and there was such a wringing of
hands and such a chorus of groans as surely Delhi had never heard or
seen before.
The attack at the front had been effectually beaten off. The doctor
hoped that the enemy would now retire altogether. But Ahmed ran up to
the roof to see whether they were indeed withdrawing. The street was
still full of rebels, and an excited altercation was going on among
them. The central figures were Minghal Khan, who had hitherto been
content to hound the men on without showing much eagerness to lead them,
and the fakir, who bore many marks of the chemical baptism he had
received. The uproar was too great to allow Ahmed to hear what was being
said; he could only guess at it by the gesticulations of the men and by
what happened afterwards. The fakir had, in fact, called on the fanatics
who surrounded him, to bring combustibles for the burning of the house.
Against this Minghal vehemently protested: the king's orders were that
no houses should be fired: this would be only to assist the Feringhis.
But the fakir scoffed at orders: it was the duty of all the faithful to
destroy the infidels by any means in their power. Then Minghal used
another argument: there was valuable property in the house--his
property, his all. The fakir's answer to this was a horrible laugh, and
the taunt that Minghal had shown no disposition to go into the house and
fetch his valuable property. Minghal was overborne. Devoted adherents of
the fakir brought up shavings, pieces of wood, jars of oil. Then, waving
his arms, his long beard dripping in many-coloured drops, the fakir led
the shouting mob round to the lane at the back. Not even he cared to
face the front again.
Ahmed was descending to inform the doctor of this new move, when he
stopped suddenly. A fresh sound had caught his ear: the sound of firing,
both artillery and musketry, far away. Were the British columns renewing
their assault? Was Colonel Jones forcing his way through the city again
towards the mosque? His heart leapt with a great hope. The mutineers
were coming to fire the house: nothing could prevent them; but rather
than die like rats in a trap, he and his comrades must make a dash
through the compound, and try to cut their way towards their friends.
Suddenly he remembered the doctor. He could not take part in such a
sortie. He must not be abandoned. The idea must be given up: there was
nothing for it but to hold out to the last moment.