Numbers were against them, and even superiority of weapons was not so overwhelmingly in their favor, for those were the days of short-range rifle-fire and smoothbore artillery, and one gun was considerably like another.  The mutinous sepoys had their rifles with them; there were guns from the ramparts of Hanadra that were capable of quite efficient service at close range; and practically every man in the dense-packed rebel line had a firearm of some kind.  It was only in cavalry and discipline and pluck that the British force had the advantage, and the cavalry had already charged once and had been repulsed.

General Turner rode up and down the sweltering firing-line, encouraging the men when it seemed to him they needed it and giving directions to his officers.  He was hidden from view oftener than not by the rolling clouds of smoke and he popped up here and there suddenly and unexpectedly.  Wherever he appeared there was an immediate stiffening among the ranks, as though he carried a supply of spare enthusiasm with him and could hand it out.

Colonel Carter, commanding the right wing, turned his head for a second at the sound of a horse’s feet and found the general beside him.

“Had I better have my wounded laid in a wagon, sir?” he suggested, “in case you find it necessary to fall back?”

“There will be no retreat!” said General Turner.  “Leave your wounded where they are.  I never saw a cannon bleed before.  How’s that?”

He spurred his horse over to where one of Bellairs’ guns was being run forward into place again and Colonel Carter followed him.  There was blood dripping from the muzzle of it.

“We’re short of water, sir!” said Colonel Carter.

And as he spoke a gunner dipped his sponge into a pool of blood and rammed it home.

Bellairs was standing between his two guns, looking like the shadow of himself, worn out with lack of sleep, disheveled, wounded.  There was blood dripping from his forehead and he wore his left arm in a sling made from his shirt.

“Fire!” he ordered, and the two guns barked in unison and jumped back two yards or more.

“If you’ll look,” said General Turner, plucking at the colonel’s sleeve, “you’ll see a handful of native cavalry over yonder behind the enemy—­ rather to the enemy’s left—­there between those two clouds of smoke.  D’you see them?”

“They look like Sikhs or Rajputs,” said the colonel.

“Yes.  Don’t they?  I’d like you to keep an eye on them.  They’ve come up from the rear.  I caught sight of them quite a while ago and I can’t quite make them out.  It’s strange, but I can’t believe that they belong to the enemy.  D’you see?—­there—­they’ve changed direction.  They’re riding as though they intended to come round the enemy’s left flank!”

“By gad, they are!  Look!  The enemy are moving to cut them off!”

“I must get back to the other wing!” said General Turner.  “But that looks like the making of an opportunity!  Keep both eyes lifting, Carter, and advance the moment you see any confusion in the enemy’s ranks.”