"Advance!"
With a cheer the rifles skirmished ahead joyfully. The engineers posted in the furthest cover long before dawn--who had waited for hours, knowing that each minute made their task harder--rose, waving their swords to guide the stormers toward the breach! Then, calmly, as if it had been dark, not daylight, crested the glacis at a swift walk, followed by the laddermen in line. Behind, with a steady tramp, the two columns bound for the breaches. But the third, upon the road, had to wait a while, as, like greyhounds from a leash, a little company slipped forward at the double.
Home of the Engineers first with two sergeants, a native havildar, and ten Punjab sappers, running lightly, despite the twenty-five pound powder bags they carried. Behind them, led by Salkeld, the firing party and a bugler. Running under the hail of bullets, faster as they fell faster, as men run to escape a storm; but these courted it, though the task had been set for night, and it was now broad daylight.
What then? They could see better. See the outer gateway open, the footway of the drawbridge destroyed, the inner door closed save for the wicket.
"Come on," shouted Home, and was across the bare beams like a boy, followed by the others.
Incredible daring! What did it mean? The doubt made the scared enemy close the wicket hastily. So against it, at the rebels' very feet, the powder bags were laid. True, one sergeant fell dead with his; but as it fell against the gates his task was done.
"Ready, Salkeld!--your turn," sang out young Home from the ditch, into which, the bags laid, the fuse set, he dropped unhurt. So across the scant foothold came the firing party, its leader holding the portfire. But the paralysis of amazement had passed; the enemy, realizing what the audacity meant, had set the wicket wide. It bristled now with muskets; so did the parapet.
"Burgess!--your turn," called Salkeld as he fell, and passed the portfire to the corporal behind him. Burgess, alias Grierson,--someone perchance retrieving a past under a new name,--took it, stooped, then with a half articulate cry either that it was "right" or "out," fell back into the ditch dead. Smith, of the powder party, lingering to see the deed done, thought the latter, and, matchbox in hand, sprang forward, cuddling the gate for safety as he struck a light. But it was not needed. As he stooped to use it, the port-fire of the fuse exploded in his face, and, half blinded, he turned to plunge headlong for escape into the ditch. A second after the gate was in fragments.
"Your turn, Hawthorne!" came that voice from the ditch. So the bugler, who had braved death to sound it, gave the advance. Once, twice, thrice, carefully lest the din from the breaches should drown it. Vain precaution, not needed either; for the sound of the explosion was enough. That thousand on the road was hungering to be no whit behind the others, and with a wild cheer the stormers made for the gate.
But Nicholson was already in Delhi, though ten minutes had gone in a fierce struggle to place a single ladder against an avalanche of shot and stone. But that one had been the signal for him to slip into the ditch, and, calling on the 1st Bengal Fusiliers to follow, escalade the bastion, first as ever.