Bang! the two rifles going off like one; and the gunner behind Captain Dyer leaped into the air; while the one I aimed at seemed to sink down suddenly beside the wheel he had leaned upon. Then the gate flew open, and with a rush and a cheer we, ten of us, raced down for the guns.
Double-quick time? I tell you it was a hard race; and being without my gun now—only my bayonet stuck in my trousers waistband—I was there first, and had driven my spike into the touch-hole before Lieutenant Leigh reached his; but the next moment his was done, the cords were cut, and the prisoners loose from the guns. But now we had to get back.
The first inkling I had of the difficulty of this was seeing Captain Dyer and Harry Lant stagger and fall forward; but they were saved by the men, and we saw directly that they must be carried.
No sooner thought of than done.
“Hoist Harry on my back,” says Grainger; and he took him like a sack; Bantem acting the same part by Captain Dyer; and those two ran off, while we tried to cover them.
For don’t you imagine that the mutineers were idle all this while; not a bit of it. They were completely taken by surprise, though, at first, and gave us time nearly to get to the guns before they could understand what we meant; but the next moment some shouted and ran at us, and some began firing; while by the time the prisoners were cast loose, they were down upon us in a hand-to-hand fight.
You see in those fierce struggles there is such excitement, that, for my part, I’ve but a very misty recollection of what took place; but I do recollect seeing the prisoners well on the way back, hearing a cheer from our men, and then, hammer in one hand, bayonet in the other, fighting my way backward along with my comrades. Then all at once a glittering flash came in the air, and I felt a dull cut on the face, followed directly after by another strange numbing blow, which made me drop my bayonet, as my arm fell uselessly to my side; and then with a lurch and a stagger I fell, and was trampled upon twice, when, as I rallied once, a black savage-looking sepoy raised his clubbed musket to knock out my brains; but a voice I well knew cried, “Not this time, my fine fellow. That’s number three, that is, and well home;” and I saw Measles drive his bayonet with a crash through the fellow’s breast-bone, so that he fell across my legs.
“Now, old chap, come along,” he shouts, and an arm was passed under me.
“Run, Measles, run!” I said as well as I could. “It’s all over with me.”
“No, ’taint,” he said; “and don’t be a fool. Let me do as I like, for once in a way.”