“Not one word of welcome,” he said, with a strange drawn look on his face, which deepened as Miss Ross rose and went close to him.
“Yes,” she said; “thank God you have returned safe.—No, no; don’t touch me,” she cried hoarsely. “Here, take me away—lead me out of this!” she said, for at that moment Lieutenant Leigh came quietly in, and she put her hands in his. “Take me out,” she said again hoarsely; and then like some one muttering in a dream: “Take me away—take me away.”
I said that drawn strange look on Captain Dyer’s face seemed to deepen as he stood watching whilst those two went out together; then he passed his hand over his eyes, as if to ask himself whether it was a dream; and then, with a groan, he leaned one hand against the wall, feeling his way out from the room, and something seemed to hinder me from calling out to him, and telling him what I knew. For I was reasoning with myself what ought I to do? and then, sick and faint I seemed to sleep again.
But this time I was waked up by a loud shrieking, and a rush of feet, and, confused as I was, I knew what it meant: the hole where the blacks escaped—Chunder and his party—had not been properly guarded, and the mutineers had climbed up and made an entrance.
The alarm spread fast enough, but not quick enough to save life; for, with a howl, half-a-dozen sepoys, with their scarlet and white coatees open, dashed in with fixed bayonets, and two women were borne to the ground in an instant, while a couple of wretches made a dash at those two children—Little Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, as we called them—standing there, wondering like, by Harry Lant’s bed on the floor, whilst the golden light of the setting sun filled the room, and lit up their little angels’ faces.
But with a howl, such as I never heard woman give, Mrs Bantem rushed between them and the children, caught a bayonet in each hand, and held them together, letting them pass under one arm, then with a spring forward she threw those great arms of hers round the black fellows’ necks as they hung together, and held them in such a hug as they never suffered from before.
The next moment they were all rolling together on the floor; but that incident saved the lives of those poor children, for there came a cheer now, and Measles and a dozen more were led in by Lieutenant Leigh, and—
There, I am telling you too many horrors. They beat them back step by step, at the point of the bayonet; and a fierce struggle it was, a long fight kept up from room to room, for our men were fierce now as the mutineers, and it was a genuine death-struggle; and the broken window being guarded, not a man of about a dozen mutineers who gained entrance lived to go back and relate their want of success.
And can you wonder, when two of those who fought had found their wives bayoneted Grainger was one of them and when the fight was over, during which, raging like a demon, he had bayoneted four men, the poor fellow sat down by his dead wife, took her head first in his lap, then to his breast, and rocked himself to and fro, crying like a child, till there was a bugle-call in the court-yard, when he laid her gently in a corner, carrying her like as if she had been a child, kneeled down, and said ‘Our Father’ right through by her side, kissed her lips two or three times, and then covered her face with a bit of an old red handkerchief; and him all the while covered with blood and dust and black of powder. Then, poor fellow, he got up and took his gun, and went out on the tips of his toes, lest he should wake her who would wake no more in this world.
Perhaps it was weakness, I don’t know, but my eyes were very wet just then, and a soft little hand was laid on my breast, and Lizzy’s head leant over me, and her tears, too, fell very fast on my hot and fevered face.