A Soldier's Daughter, and Other Stories

by G. A. Henty

Two minutes passed, then there was a deep roar; the mosque came down like a house of cards, and many of the dwellings collapsed from the shock of the explosion. Timbers and stones flew up high into the air. There was a moment's pause, and then an outburst of wild yells and screams. "I think that ought to frighten them a bit," the lieutenant said; "unless their leader has great power over them, and is a man of iron nerves, they will be off. The worst of it is, they won't like to return home to face their women after the disasters that they have suffered, and without having obtained some great success. The men scarcely know what nerves mean, and they may very well make up their minds to try one last attempt. You may be sure it will be a formidable one if they do, and they will probably adopt some entirely new scheme. We shall have to be doubly cautious for the next two nights."

Although a sharp look-out was kept, there was no sign of the enemy retreating. Towards evening a scattered fire was opened from the village against the gate, but otherwise the night passed quietly.

"I don't like it," Carter said the next morning; "the enemy have not gone yet, and they have not renewed the attack. I have no doubt that the beggars are up to something. I wish I knew what it was. It worries me."

"It does seem strange," Nita said; "but perhaps they have been burying their dead, which would keep them pretty well occupied all day. However, as we have beaten them off twice with the loss to ourselves of only six killed and eight wounded, I suppose that we shall be able to resist them again."

"I am sure we shall if they attack us openly. It is only the unknown that I am afraid of. I was on the walls the whole night, but except for a continued random fire from the village they were quiet. I wish we had a moon. In that case we could make them out comfortably at a hundred yards, whereas on these dark nights one can't see twenty."

The officer's prevision of danger told upon Nita, and when she reached the bungalow that night she dressed herself in Carter's uniform, cut her hair carefully close to her head, and lay down in readiness to leap up at the first alarm.

Had anyone been keeping special watch in the courtyard, they would have seen a number of dark figures clustering between the wall and the hospital. During that and the preceding night a party of Afridis had gathered at the foot of the wall, crawling forward, one by one, on their stomachs. They were armed only with spear and knife, and with these had attacked the wall noiselessly, working the stones out one by one, unobserved and undreamt of by the watch on the wall above. The first night they had almost completed their work, and by three in the morning on the second had made an opening through which two men could pass abreast; then one had gone back to the village, and presently a stream of men were passing through the wall.

When all was ready they burst out with triumphant yells. They were, however, ignorant of the position of the various houses, and scattered miscellaneously. A moment later the bugle sounded, and twenty men in reserve at once made a rush to the mess-house. The defenders of the wall came running down the various steps leading from the battlements. Many of these were cut down on the way, but twelve of them managed to join their comrades at the mess-house.

Nita sprang up when the first yell broke out, seized her revolver and a box of cartridges, and had reached the mess-house just as the party in the yard came in. The door was kept open until the last fugitive entered, desperately wounded, and followed by a mob of the exulting Afridis, who, however, were prevented from entering the building.