“Well, I don’t know,” the more hopeful red-coat replied; “but they say that the Guides and the Sirmur Battalion of Gurkhas are coming to help us.”
“Guides and Gurkies be blowed! You’ll just see; the niggers’ll come as far as it suits them, then they’ll kill their officers and march into Delhi. They ought to have been disarmed, Guides and Gurkies and everyone else, straight away.”
“Hear, hear!” joined in the others. “We don’t want no niggers helpin’ us.”
“They don’t know much about the Guides, do they, Ted?” Alec whispered.
“They don’t. But they spoke of the Sirmur Gurkhas. I wonder whether they are coming here? My cousin Charlie Dorricot is with them, so I hope they are. He’s a jolly beggar is Charlie.”
“They say Gurkhas are always to be trusted,” Alec replied; “and from what these fellows say, it’s evident they haven’t mutinied so far.... Hullo! what’s up now? The ‘Alarm’! By Jove, the pandies are attacking us!”
A bugle had sounded the ‘Alarm’; the men sprang to their feet, rushed for their arms, and prepared to fall in. In an instant the whole camp was alive.
“What is it? Who are they?”
“Over there! Look! It’s an attack on our rear.”
The bugle blew again, and the alarm gradually subsided. All eyes were directed towards a body of men marching wearily, but with correct, well-drilled step, along the road leading towards the British camp. They seemed dark, very short of stature, and curiously attired, and that was all that could be made out. Though not Europeans, they were evidently friends, because the “Alarm” sounded by the first bugle had been contradicted by the second call.