“Yes.”
“Let me have one—quick.” He hurried in, and speedily loaded the chambers of a Colt’s. Then thrusting the weapon into his belt, and buttoning over his coat, he kissed Flora, and pressing her to his heart, said—“Good-bye, darling, I shall not be long away. I know that Harper has something of the utmost importance to say, or he would not ask me to go.”
“God protect you!” she murmured. “Until you return, my heart will be full of fear.”
In another moment the two men were galloping down the Mall, towards the great road which led to Delhi, that city being forty miles from Meerut.
“Walter,” said Harper, when they had got some distance away, “I did not wish to alarm Flo, but there is an awful time coming for us. It is not clear, yet, from what quarter the danger will arise. The Commandant has, this afternoon, received some information, whether trustworthy or not is not very clear. At anyrate, he attaches more than ordinary importance to it, and I am the bearer of dispatches to Delhi. My mission is one fraught with the greatest amount of personal danger, and I may never return alive. But I am a soldier, and must do my duty. To your care I consign my wife. When you get back, take Flo and her mother up to my bungalow. You will be company for Emily, and be under the protection of the troops in the barracks. If nothing serious occurs to-night, the danger may be averted. I regret now that we treated Flora’s fears with so much disregard. With a woman’s keener sense of penetration, she saw farther ahead than we did.”
“What, then, is the nature of the danger anticipated?” Walter asked.
“A general revolt of the native soldiery, and a wholesale massacre,” was the answer.
“Great Heavens! Is that so?” exclaimed the other, as his heart almost stood still at the bare thought of the horrors the words suggested.