[CHAPTER IV.]
NOON.
But if the schoolmaster of one school lay dead in the sunlight there was another, well able to teach a useful lesson, left alive; and his school remains for all time as a place where men may learn what men can do.
For about three hundred yards from the deserted College, about six hundred from the main-guard of the Cashmere gate, stood the magazine, to which the two young Englishmen, followed by a burlier one, had walked back quietly after one of them had remarked that he could hold his own. For there were gates to be barred, four walls to be seen to, and various other preparations to be made before the nine men who formed the garrison could be certain of holding their own. And their own meant much to others; for with the stores and the munitions of war safe the city might rise, but it would be unarmed; but with them at the mercy of the rabble every pitiful pillager could become a recruit to the disloyal regiments.
"The mine's about finished now, sir," said Conductor Buckley, saluting gravely as he looked critically down a line ending in the powder magazine. "And, askin' your pardon, sir, mightn't it be as well to settle a signal beforehand, sir; in case it's wanted? And, if you have no objection, sir, here's Sergeant Scully here, sir, saying he would look on it as a kind favor----"
A man with a spade glanced up a trifle anxiously for the answer as he went on with his work.
"All right! Scully shall fire it. If you finish it there in the middle by that little lemon tree, we shan't forget the exact spot. Scully must see to having the portfire ready for himself. I'll give the word to you, as your gun will be near mine, and you can pass it on by raising your cap. That will do, I think."
"Nicely, sir," said Conductor Buckley, saluting again.
"I wish we had one more man," remarked the Head-of-the-nine, as he paused in passing a gun to look to something in its gear with swift professional eye. "I don't quite see how the nine of us are to work the ten guns."
"Oh! we'll manage somehow," said his second in command, "the native establishment--perhaps----"