"He has got a magnificent pair of bellows," remarked an officer, who, after a time, came down with a hundred and fifty of the Rifles to aid that hundred and fifty natives in holding the post against six thousand and more of their countrymen.
"Splendid! he has been at it this hour or more," said Major Erlton. "I really think they are mad. They don't seem to aim or to care. There they are again!"
It was darker now, and Walidad Khân from Peshawur and Gorakh-nâth from Nepâl, and Bill Atkins from Lambeth had to listen for that tootling of assemblies and advances to tell them when to fire blindly from the embrazures into the smoke and the roar and the rattle. So they fell to wondering among themselves if they had nicked him that time. Once or twice the silence seemed to say they had; but after a bit the tootling began again, and a disappointed pair of eyes peeping curiously, recklessly, would see a dim figure running madly to the assault again.
"Plucky devil!" muttered Major Erlton as with the loan of a rifle he had his try. There was a look of hope on dark faces and white alike as they cuddled down to the rifle stocks and came up to listen. It was like shooting into a herd of does for the one royal head; and some of the sportsmen had tempers.
"Shaitân-ke-butcha!" (Child of the devil), muttered Walidad Khân, whereat Gorakh-nâth grinned from ear to ear.
"Wot cher laughin' at?" asked Bill Atkins, who had been indulging in language of his own. "A feller can't 'it ghosts. An' e's the piper as played afore Moses; that's what 'ee is."
"Look sharp, men!" came the officer's warning. "There's a new lot coming on. Wait and let them have it."
They did. The din was terrific. The incessant flashes lighting up the city, showed its roofs crowded with the families of absent Shumsha-deens. So High Heaven must have been assailed, indeed, that night.
And even when dawn came it brought no Sabbath calm. Only a fresh batch of martyrs. But they had no bugler; for with the dawn some fierce frontiersman, jesting Cockney, or grinning Ghoorkha may have risked his life for a fair shot in daylight at the piper who played before Moses. Anyhow, he played no more. Perhaps the lack of him, perhaps the torrents of rain which began to fall as the sun rose, quenched the fires of faith. Anyhow, by nine o'clock the din was over, the drum ecclesiastic ceased to beat, and the English going out to count the dead found the bugler lying close to the breastwork, his bugle still in his hand; a nameless hero save for that passing jest.
But someone in the city no doubt mourned the piper who played before Moses, as they mourned other martyrs. More than a thousand of them.