The Sepoys were now the assailants, and with furious shouts pressed round the little body of British troops.

“Steady, men, steady,” Captain Mallett shouted, as he drove his sword through the body of one of the rebel leaders who rushed at him.  “Keep together, back to back.  We shall have help here in a minute.”

It was longer than that, however, before relief came.  For three or four minutes a desperate struggle went on, then Marshall’s voice was heard shouting: 

“This way, men, this way!”

A moment later there was a surging movement in the ranks of the insurgents, and with a dozen men Marshall burst through them, and joined the party.  These at once fell furiously upon the mutineers, and the latter were already giving way when some fifty of the Punjaubies, led by their officers, fell upon them.

The effect was decisive.  The Sepoys scattered at once, and fled in all directions, pursued by the furious soldiers and the Punjaubies.  Reaching the walls, the fugitives leapt recklessly down.  Forty or fifty of them were cut down by the cavalry, but the greater portion reached the broken ground in safety.  Here the cavalry could not follow them, for the ground was covered with rocks and boulders concealed by the bushes.  In the village itself three hundred and fifty lay dead.

“Thanks, Marshall,” Frank Mallett said, when the fight in the village was over.  “You arrived just in time, for it was going very hard with us.  Altogether it was more than we bargained for, for they were certainly over a thousand strong.  They must have been joined by a very strong party yesterday.”

“I ought not to have gone so far,” Marshall replied, “but I had no idea that all the Punjaubies had come to our side of the fight.  The men were so eager that I had the greatest difficulty in getting them off the pursuit.  Fortunately I met Herbert, and learned that all his men were with us.  Then I gathered a dozen of our fellows, and rushed off, telling him to follow as soon as he could get some of his men together.

“You can imagine what agony I felt when, as I entered the open space, I saw a surging mass of Sepoys, and no sign of any of you; and how I cursed my own folly, and what delight I felt, as on cutting our way through we found that you were still on your feet.”

“Yes, it was a close shave, Marshall; another two or three minutes and it would have been all over.  The men fought like lions, as you can see by the piled-up dead there.  Half of them were down, and twenty men cannot hold out long against four or five hundred.

“We owe our lives to you beyond all question.  I don’t see that you were in the least to blame in the matter, for naturally you would suppose that some of the Punjaubies would have joined us.  Besides, it was of course essential that you should not give the Sepoys time to rally, but should follow them up hotly.

“Where is Anstruther?”