Charge after charge of grape was fired among the wretches, and the rifles of the brave garrison cracked without intermission; but the sepoys numbered thousands, and no diminution of the horde was noticeable. They too kept up an unremitting fusillade, dancing and darting hither and thither, so overrunning with wild fury that they could not keep still. Without the least chance of accomplishing anything, hundreds fired their guns against the solid walls: such was their fanatical venom that they could not help it.
After a time two of the garrison were wounded, and only seven were left to fight the raging host.
From one of the bastions, the eye could trace a long reach of road in the direction of Delhi. Here Willoughby stationed himself, while Conductor Scully stood with lighted portfire, and his eye fixed on his commander, waiting for the signal to fire the magazine.
Shading his eyes with his hand, the lieutenant gazed long and earnestly in the direction of Meerut. Across the flaming plain, the keen vision searched for that which it could not see.
Ah, what means that dust? Is it not made by the hoofs of the cavalry galloping in mad haste to the rescue of the garrison, which can hold out but a few minutes longer? No; the faint puff of dust is wafted aside like a feather, and there is nothing beneath.
Meanwhile Scully grows impatient. He knows that when the magazine is fired it will hurl hundreds of the sepoys into eternity. They are swarming so fast that the opportunity is a glorious one.
"Isn't it time?" he calls out to the lieutenant, who glances toward him and shakes his head.
No hope, but the officer peers off over the buildings, along the parched road, over which if the help comes at all it must come quickly. He knows from the infernal tumult without that the sepoys will be inside the defenses within the next ten minutes. Even if the cavalry should now dash into sight they cannot reach the garrison in time to save them.
"Time yet, lieutenant?" asks Scully again.
"Yes; touch her off!" replies the officer, raising his hat above his head: this is the signal agreed upon for firing the magazine. Conductor Scully stoops over and touches the flame to the powder. The serpent of fire hisses straight into the heart of the magazine, and it seems as if a volcano has burst through the crust of the earth. The ground sways, as did that beneath Charleston, and an immense volume of fire and vapor, as if belched from Vesuvius, rolls upward and settles in a black cloud above the city.