CHAPTER XXX
CAIRO SAVED AND HELMAR'S REWARD
As they arrived outside the citadel of Mehemet Ali, Helmar looked up at the frowning wall of the great fortress. Here he was at the place where he had received his inhuman treatment; this was the place where he had been found by his friends and rescued when in dire extremity. Under what different circumstances was he now returning to it. No longer to be a place for the perpetration of atrocities, they had come to demand its surrender, and, with that surrender, the capitulation of the town. And how was this done? By the daring of a devoted little band of a hundred and fifty exhausted, though determined, men!
Twenty thousand fanatics in the city and ten thousand troops in the citadel—was there any limit to the daring recklessness of the British soldier? After this exhibition, George thought not, and waited to see what next this brave little band was capable of.
During the short pause while the garrison was being summoned, the men, with stern, set faces, gripped their weapons ready for any emergency. As Helmar glanced at the faces of those nearest him, the expressions he saw written upon their features put all doubt as to their intentions at rest. He had said truly on his journey to Cairo that they were marching to "Death or Glory!"