“Where is it, then?” said Dick anxiously.
“Just below these rooms. I was obliged to have it put there temporarily. We’ll make one of the places across the yard there a magazine to-morrow. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Dick, who had suddenly grown wakeful.
“You shan’t be blown up, Dicky,” continued Wyatt; “we can’t spare you.”
“I wish he hadn’t said anything about that powder being underneath,” muttered Dick as he undressed, after examining his charpoy, with its delicate muslin mosquito-curtains.
But he threw himself down with a weary sigh, thoroughly enjoying the elasticity of the laced-string bottom of the bedstead; and, powder or no powder, in less than five minutes he was fast asleep.
Chapter XIX.
In Action.
It was hard for a brief space for Richard Darrell to grasp the fact that he was not in cantonments at Roumwallah when the trumpet rang out in the grey dawn and echoed round the courtyard—for the change was sudden from deep sleep to wakefulness.
But the appearance of the bed-hangings and the strangeness of the place brought all back with a rush, and he leaped out of bed to run to the window and look out.