“Yes, I am in luck again.  Like the last it is only a flesh wound, though it is rather worse, for I expect that I shall have to go about with a stiff neck for some weeks to come, and it is disgusting being laid up in the middle of an affair like this.  Have we lost many fellows?”

“No.  Scobell is the only officer killed.  Hunter, Groves and Parkinson are wounded—­Parkinson, they say, seriously.  We have twenty-two rank and file killed, and twenty or thirty wounded.  I have not seen the returns.”

“And how about the loot, Marshall?” Mallett said, with a smile.  “Was that all humbug?”

“It is stupendous.  We were among the first at the Kaiser Bagh, and I don’t believe that there is a man who has not got his pockets stuffed with gold coins.  There were chests and chests full.  They did not bother about the jewels—­I think they took them for coloured glass.  I kept my eyes open, and picked up enough to pay my debt to you five times over.”

“I am heartily glad of that, Marshall.  Don’t let it slip through your fingers again.”

“That you may be sure I won’t.  I shall send them all home to our agent to sell, and have the money put by for purchasing my next step.  I have had my lesson, and it will last me for life.

“Well, I must be going now, old man.  The Colonel did not like letting me go, as of course the men want looking after, and the Pandies may make an effort to drive us out of the Kaiser Bagh again; so goodbye.  If I can get away this evening I will come to see you at the hospital.”

A week later Frank Mallett was sitting in a chair by his bedside.  The fighting was all over, and a strange quiet had succeeded the long roar of battle.  His neck was strapped up with bandages, and save that he was unable to move his head in the slightest degree, he felt well enough to take his place with the regiment again.  Many of his fellow officers dropped in from time to time for a short chat, but the duty was heavy.  All open resistance had ceased, but the troops were engaged in searching the houses, and turning out all rough characters who had made Lucknow their centre, and had no visible means of subsistence.  Large gangs of the lower class population were set to work to bury the dead, which would otherwise have rendered the city uninhabitable.  Strong guards were posted at night, alike to prevent soldiers from wandering in search of loot and to prevent fanatics from making sudden attacks.

“There is a wounded man in the hospital across the road who wants to see you, Mallett,” the surgeon said one morning.  “He belongs to your company, but as he only came out with the last draft, and was transferred only on the day that the fighting began, I don’t suppose you know him.  He said I was to tell you his name was George Lechmere, though he enlisted as John Hilton.”

“I seem to know the name, doctor, though I don’t remember at present where I came across him.  I suppose I can go in to see him?”