"The sepoys are coming in again," he said; "they claim a victory--but that, of course, is impossible. Still I don't understand, and it is so difficult to get any reliable information."
"You should go out yourself--I believe it would be best for us both," replied Kate, "Tara----"
He shook his head impatiently. "Not now. What is the use of risking all at the last. We can only have to wait till to-morrow. But I don't understand it, all the same. The sepoys say they surprised the camp--that the buglers were still calling to arms when their artillery opened fire. But so far as I can make out they have lost five guns, and from the amount of bhang they are drinking, I believe it was a rout. However, if you don't mind, I'll be off again--and--and don't be alarmed if I stay out."
"I'm not in the least alarmed," she replied. "As I have told you before, I don't think it is necessary you should come here at all."
He paused at the door to glance back at her half-resentfully. To be sure she did not know that he had slept on its threshold as a rule; but anyhow, after eating your heart out over one woman's safety for three weeks, it was hard to be told that you were not wanted. But, thank Heaven! the end was at hand. And yet as he lingered round the watch-fires he heard nothing but boasting, and in more than one of the mosques thanksgivings were being offered up; while outside the walls volunteers to complete the task so well begun were assembling to go forth with the dawn and kill the few remaining infidels. Some drunk with bhang, more intoxicated by the lust of blood which comes to fighting races like the Rajpoot with the first blow. It had come to Soma, as, with fierce face seamed with tears, he told the tale again and again of his chum's gallant death. How Davee Singh, brother in arms, his boyhood's playmate, seeing some cowards of artillerymen abandoning a tumbril full of ammunition to the cursed Mlechchas, had leaped to it like a black-buck, and with a cry to Kali, Mother of Death, had fired his musket into it; so sending a dozen or more of the hell-doomed to their place, and one more brave Rajpoot to Swarga.
"Jai! Jai! Kâli ma ki jai!"
An echo of the dead man's last cry came from many a living one, as muskets were gripped tighter in the resolve to be no whit behind. A few more such heroes and the Golden Age would come again; the age of the blessed Pandâva, who forgot the cause in the quarrel.
And so for one day more Jim Douglas strained his ears for that distant thunder on the horizon, while the people of the town, becoming more accustomed to it, went about their business, vaguely relieved at anything which should keep the sepoys' hands from mischief.
The red sunset glow was on the mosque again when he returned to the little slip of roof to find Kate working away at her grammars calmly. The best thing she could do, since every word she learned was an additional safeguard; and yet the man could not help a scornful smile.
"It is a rout this time, I am sure," he said; "and yet there is no sign of pursuit. I cannot understand it; there seems a Fate about it!"