“Why didn’t my orders say anything about a mutiny or bringing in my wife?”

“Dunno!  I didn’t write ’em.  I can guess, though.  There’d be something like nine reasons.  For one thing, they’d credit you with sense enough to bring her in without being told.  For another, the messenger who took the note might have got captured on the way—­they wouldn’t want to tell the sepoys more than they could help.  Then there’d be something like a hurry.  They’re attacked there too—­can’t even send us assistance.  Told us to waylay you and make use of you.  Maybe they forgot your wife—­maybe they didn’t.  It’s a devil of a business anyhow!”

It was difficult to talk at the speed that they were making, with their own horses breathing heavily, O’Rourke’s especially; the guns thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front, and their attention distracted every other minute by the noise of volleys on ahead and the occasional staccato rattle of independent firing.  The whole sky was now alight with the reflection of the burning barracks and they could see the ragged outlines of the cracking walls silhouetted against the blazing red within.  One mile or less from the burning buildings they could see, too, the occasional flash of rifles where the two companies of the Thirty-third, Honorable East India Company’s Light Infantry, held out against the mutineers.

“Why did they mutiny?” asked Bellairs.

“God knows!  Nobody knows!  Nobody knows anything!  I’m thinking—­”

“Thinking what?”

“Forrester-Carter is commanding.  We’ll settle this business pretty quickly, now you’ve come.  Then—­Steady, boy!  Steady!  Hold up!  This poor horse of mine is just about foundered, by the feel of him.  He’ll reach Doonha, though.  Then we’ll ask Carter to make a dash on Hanadra and bring Mrs. Bellairs—­maybe we’ll meet her and the Risaldar half-way—­who knows?  The sepoys wouldn’t expect that, either.  The move’d puzzle ’em—­it’d be a good move, to my way of thinking.”

“Let’s hope Carter will consent!” prayed Bellairs fervently.  “Now, what’s the lay of things?”

“Couldn’t tell you!  When I left, our men were surrounded.  I had to burst through the enemy to get away.  Ours are all around the magazine and the sepoys are on every side of them.  You’ll have to use diagonal fire unless you want to hurt some of our chaps—­sweep ’em cornerwise.  There’s high ground over to the right there, within four hundred yards of the position.  Maybe they’re holding it, though—­ there’s no knowing!”

They could hear the roar of the flames now, and could see the figures of sepoys running here and there.  The rattle of musketry was incessant.  They could hear howls and yells and bugle-calls blown at random by the sepoys, and once, in answer as it seemed to a more than usually savage chorus from the enemy—­a chorus that was punctuated by a raging din of intermittent rifle-fire—­a ringing cheer.