“We must try your plan, Smith,” says Captain Dyer with a quiet stern look. “It is time to evacuate the place now.”
Then he knelt down and took a look at the guns with his glass, and I knew he must have been thinking of how he stood tied to the muzzle of one of them, for he gave a sort of shudder as he closed his glass with a snap.
Just then, Miss Ross came round with Lizzy and Mrs Bantem, with wine and water, and I saw a sort of quiet triumph in Lieutenant Leigh’s face, as, avoiding Captain Dyer, Miss Ross went up to him, as he half-beckoned to her, and stood by him like a slave, giving him bottle and glass, and then standing by his side with her eyes fixed and strange-looking; while, though he fought against it bravely, and tried to be unmoved, Captain Dyer could not bear it, but walked away.
I was just then drinking some water given me by Lizzy, whose pale troubled little face looked up so lovingly in mine that I felt half-ashamed for me, a poor private, to be so happy—for I forgot my wounds then—while my captain was in pain and suffering. And then it was that it struck me that Captain Dyer was just in that state in which men feel despairing, and go and do desperate things. I felt that I ought before now to have told him all about what I had heard, but I was in hopes that things would right themselves, and always came to the conclusion that it was Miss Ross’s duty to have given the captain some explanation of her treatment; anyhow, it did not seem to be mine; but when I saw the poor smitten fellow go off like he did, I followed him softly till I came up with him, my heart beating the while with a curious sense of fear.
There was nothing to fear, though: he had only gone up to the root and when I came up with him he was evidently calculating about our escape, for he finished off by pulling out his telescope, and looking right across the plain, towards where there was a tank and a small station.
“I think that ought to be our way, Smith,” he said. “We could stay there for half an hour’s rest, and then on again towards Wallahbad, sending a couple of the stoutest men on for help. By the way, we’ll try and start a man off to-night, as soon as it’s dark. Who will you have to help you?”
“I should like to have Bigley, sir,” I said.
“Will one be sufficient?”
“Quite, sir,” I said; for I thought Measles and I could manage it between us.
Half an hour after, Measles was busy at work, fetching up muskets, with bayonets fixed, from down in the store, and laying them in order on the flat roof; taking care the while to keep out of sight; and I went to the room where the women were, under Mrs Bantem’s management, getting ready for what was to come, for they had been told that we might leave the place all at once.