And, as the less fanatical, less courageous, less bloodthirsty withdrew and gathered without and to one side, where they were safe from that terrible fire-belching rampart that was itself like the muzzle of some gigantic thousand-barrelled machine-gun, they were aware, in their rear, of a steady tramp of running feet and of the orders:—­

“From the centre extend!  At the enemy in front; fixed sights; fire,” and of a withering hail of bullets.

Colonel Ross-Ellison had arrived in the nick of time.  It was a “crowning mercy” indeed, the beginning of the end, and when (a few days later), over a repaired bridge, came a troop-train, gingerly advancing, the battalion of British troops that it disgorged at Gungapur Road Station found disappointingly little to do in a city of women, children, and eminently respectable innocent, householders.

* * * * *

On the hill-top, at dawn, Colonel Ross-Ellison and Captain Malet-Marsac found all that was left of the picket and sentry-group,—­of the latter, three mangled corpses, the headless deserter, and a just-living man, horribly slashed.  It was Moussa Isa Somali who improvised a stretcher and lifted this poor fellow on to it and tended him with the greatest solicitude and faithful care.  Was he not Jones Sahib who at Duri gave him the knife wherewith he cleansed his honour and avenged his insulted People?

Of the picket, nine lay dead and one dying.  Of the dead, one had his lower jaw neatly and cleanly removed by a bullet.  Two had bled to death.

“’Ullo, Guvner!” whispered Corporal Horace Faggit through parched cracked lips.  “We kep’ ’em orf.  We ‘eld the bleedin’ fort,” and the last effect of the departing mind upon the shot-torn, knife-slashed body was manifested in a gasping, quavering wail of—­

    “‘Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin’”
      Jesus whispers still. 
    “‘Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin,’”
      —­By Thy graice we will.

Each of these corpses Moussa Isa carried reverently down to the Prison that they might be “buried darkly at dead of night” with the other heroes, in softer ground without the walls—­a curious funeral in which loaded rifles and belted maxim played their silent part.  Apart from the honoured dead was buried the body of Private Augustus Grabble, shot against the Prison wall by order of Colonel Ross-Ellison for cowardice in the face of the enemy and desertion of his post.  So was that of Private Green, deserter also.  After the uninterrupted ceremony, Moussa Isa, in the guise of an ancient beggar, lame, decrepit, and bandaged with foul rags, sought the city and the news of the bazaar.

Limping down the lane in which stood the tall silent house that his master often visited, he saw three men emerge from the well-known low doorway.

Two approached him while one departed in the opposite direction.  One of these two held the arm of the other.