Gil the Gunner - George Manville Fenn (people reading books .TXT) 📗

about the room, they rested upon a couch at the side, upon which lay something covered completely by a tablecloth, whose whiteness was horribly stained.

I shuddered, and tried to turn my eyes away, but I could not, and involuntarily I followed Brace and the doctor, as Dost went to the couch.

“Better keep away, Gil, lad,” said Brace, in a low voice, full of emotion. “You will have enough horrors forced upon you without seeking them out.”

I made no answer, but I did not retire, as Brace softly raised the cloth from the face of our commanding officer, and I saw that, though disfigured by a couple of terrible cuts, it was quite placid; and my heart warmed—in my sorrow for my poor friend—toward the Hindu servant who had so reverently treated his remains.

Then a thrill ran through me, for as Brace stood holding the cloth raised, and Dost held the candle for us to see, the doctor uttered an ejaculation, pushed Brace rudely aside, and then laid his rifle on the ground, and began to tear open the light cotton garment the major wore, while his busy hands played, in the dim light, about his breast.

“Here, Dost,” he whispered, “put down the light. Tear this cloth into narrow bandages. Vincent, lad, take out my pocket-book from my breast, and open it.”

“Great heavens, Danby!” began Brace.

“Thank Heaven, you mean,” said the doctor, in his quick, business-like way. “Good job I’m here. Dost, you fool, you shouldn’t be in such a hurry. Why, you might have buried him. The man’s not dead.”

No word was uttered, but there was a quick expiration of the breath, and then a busy silence, only broken by the rustling movements of the doctor, who kept on examining and bandaging.

At last he began to speak.

“Wonderful how nature stops bleeding,” he whispered. “He has cuts and stabs enough to have bled any one to death, but there’s a spark left yet.”

“Hist! what’s that?” said Brace, as a sound came from the door.

“Right, sir,” said a voice, which I knew to be Sergeant Craig’s. “Mr Haynes is getting uneasy.”

“Go and tell him,” said Brace, who was kneeling and holding one end of a bandage.

I crossed to the door.

“We’ve found the major,” I whispered, “desperately wounded, but alive.”

“Oh!” came in one burst from the men.

“Go and tell Mr Haynes.”

“Best news I’ve heard to-day, sir,” whispered the sergeant, who turned and went off at the double while I stepped outside, and closed the door to satisfy myself that the light could not be seen.

“No, sir,” said one of the men, “we couldn’t see a speck of it.”

I hurried back to report in a whisper that all was safe, and for the next quarter of an hour I looked on till the doctor had finished his task.

“There,” he said, rising, “he’s as bad as can be, but I may bring him round if we can get him to a place of safety.”

“Dost can help us, perhaps,” I whispered.

“Try and manage it with him, Danby,” said Brace, “while I go and see if the horses are safe. Dost, I ask your pardon for my unjust suspicions. Forgive me!”

“The captain sahib did not know my heart,” was the reply; and before leaving, I caught and pressed the Hindu’s hand.

Outside in the black night, where the hot wind was sighing, and the great stars blinking down, we left one man on guard at the mess-room door, and hurried round to the stables, where, to our great delight, we were saluted by a low whinnying from the horses, my two and Brace’s being safe and eagerly waiting for their supply of food. Leaving the men to feed them, we hurried to the next stables, where the major’s horses should have been, in company with the doctor’s, but the place was empty; and on continuing our quest, Barton’s and Haynes’s were all missing, while the men’s troopers were gone, and a glance at the sheds showed that not a gun or limber was left.

“Back to the mess-room,” said Brace, after we had come upon several of our dead men, but had seen no trace of either of the women attached to the corps. “Heard anything?” he whispered to the sentry.

“Woman scream, sir.”

“No, no.”

“Yes, sir; I swear to it. Heard it twice quite plain.”

“Jackals on the prowl, man,” said Brace.

“Must have been a female jackal, then,” I heard the man mutter, as I passed in and found the doctor and my Hindu servant by the couch.

“How is he?” whispered Brace.

“Well, he’s alive, and that’s all,” replied the doctor. “Dost here says that if we have him carried to a house in the town about a quarter of a mile away, he knows people who will nurse him. Will you give orders. There are plenty of light dhoolies.”

“Will he be safe?” said Brace, quickly.

“My life upon it, sahib,” said Dost. “I can attend him too when the master does not want me. But I can be useful to him still.”

“This is no time for wanting servants,” said Brace, shortly. “Let it be as he proposes. I will get the men and the dhooly at once.”

“Where will the master be when I want to follow him?”

Brace hesitated for a few moments, and seemed to be about to speak out, but he altered his mind, and said slowly:

“I cannot say yet. But we will keep communicating with you where the major is.”

“But the master had better take me,” said Dost, quickly. “The place will be full of budmashes, and the people all about will be enemies now. How are the sahibs to know where to get food or shelter, or to get news without me? I can go anywhere—you nowhere.”

“Not yet,” said Brace, meaningly; “but you are right, Dost, you shall go with us, and keep open our communications.”

We went out and across to the gate, where Haynes was fretting with anxiety, but a thrill ran through the men as they found there was work on hand. The orders were given, and a corporal and four men were told off to carry the dhooly, which was found at once, and borne to the mess-room. Then the major was carefully lifted in, and with the doctor in charge and Dost as guide, the little party sallied forth with the understanding that they were to return as quickly as possible.

The interval was spent in a search for food; then arms were hunted out, we officers finding that our quarters had not been plundered, and hurriedly changing our hunting garments for service uniform; and somehow as I stepped out again into the dark night, with sword belted on, and pistols ready to place in my saddle holsters, the helpless despairing feeling began to wear off.

By this time the horses had been saddled and bridled, and all were ready for the next move, but the doctor did not return, and while we were waiting a faint shouting arose from below in the city.

We had been well over the barracks and learned the worst, Brace sharing my surprise that so little plundering had been going on; and whilst we were standing once more in the court with the men drawn up, a picket at the gate, and one of the horses laden with provisions and ammunition, Haynes turned to me.

“It’s terribly un-English,” he said; “but they would have no mercy on us.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“They have declared war on us, and they ought to take the consequences.”

“Explain yourself,” I said, as I felt as if I were listening to him with one ear, and for the return of our absent men with the other.

“Well,” he said, “I feel as if I should like to give the scoundrels a lesson. The magazine is half full of powder, and to-morrow the wretches will be up here plundering and destroying.”

“Well, what then?”

“It would be so easy to lay a trap for them. Plant all the powder behind the gates, after carefully barricading them; lay a train; wait till they were all crowded together, and trying to get in, and then fire the train and blow them all to destruction.”

“And who would fire the train, Haynes?” said Brace, who, unnoticed by us, had heard every word.

“I feel as if I could enjoy staying behind on purpose,” said Haynes.

“Hah! I’ve better work on hand for you,” said Brace, quietly. “It would do no good, and only be destroying a mob of the greatest ruffians in Rajgunge. Hah, there is the challenge at last.”

In effect the doctor and the men with the dhooly came back just then.

“Where’s Dost—staying with the major?” cried Brace.

“No, sahib, I am here,” came from the interior of the dhooly, out of which Dost stepped as the men set it down.

“What does this mean?” said Brace, angrily.

“His ruse to save us,” said the doctor. “We got poor Lacey safe into comfortable quarters at the house of two of the women who washed for the men, and they are to be trusted, I think. I can do no more for him, but see to his wounds to-morrow. As soon as I had seen him right, we were coming back, when, as luck had it, we got into a narrow lane, and half-way along it, heard a noisy party coming shouting along from some festivity. Retreat was impossible, and I gave the orders to the men to draw and cut our way through, but Dost here stopped us by proposing to get in the dhooly.”

“Why?” said Brace, angrily.

“I’ll tell you. It was a last resource; and though the men grumbled, they lifted the dhooly, and I marched by the side. The next minute we were stopped.”

“Well?”

“Hang him!” cried the doctor; “he began to curse them in Hindustani for stopping his gharry, ordered them to let his servants go by, and the idiots took it that a complete change had come over the state of affairs; that Dost must have turned rajah, and was using the English as his slaves. So they all shouted with delight, let us pass, and here we are, thanks to Rajah Dost.”

“Then, now for our start,” said Brace, “unless it would be wiser to stay here till morning, Dost must go out and try and obtain news of the women.”

“No, no, sahib,” cried the Hindu, excitedly. “By daylight all the budmashes of the city will be up here to plunder and burn.”

“Do you hear, Haynes?” said Brace, bitterly. “They may bring the punishment upon themselves.”

“I have thought of the mem sahib, master,” continued Dost, “and one of the women will try and learn news for us. She will find it better than I could.”

“You are right,” said Brace; and giving orders for the horses to be led in the rear, he placed himself at the head of our little column, gave the word march, and we filed out of the gate, Dost leading through the silent lanes of the city, and then round below its walls to the bridge of boats, which was passed without our having encountered a soul.

In our helpless state it was felt that we could do no better than to go by Dost’s advice, for he knew the country round, and suggested that we should go on as rapidly as possible, so as to reach one of the patches of forest which clothed the slopes of the valley side opposite the city before daybreak.

“And when we are there?” asked Brace.

“We shall be within reach of the major sahib, and I can take the doctor sahib over to him when it is night again.”

“Very well,” said Brace, thoughtfully.

Then, as if remembering the great aim he had in view—

“Did the scoundrels go up the valley toward the rajah’s?”

“No, sahib; they brought the guns over the bridge, and some say they have gone to Ramul.”

“That is only a few miles away,” said Brace, quickly, “and beyond the hills. Forward, my lads. No speaking in the ranks.”

We tramped on silently for a couple of hours with the night growing darker as we went onward, the