It was a short and desperate struggle. The Sepoys were completely surprised. They offered but a feeble resistance. The oath of the English soldiers was indeed remembered, and though the number of lives taken was not equal to the number of hairs, the retribution was terrible. The deadly bayonet did its work, until the few surviving Sepoys, stricken with fear, turned and fled back to the city. The English followed right up to the gate, bayoneting many of the cowards in the back as they ran.
“We can return now,” said the officer, as he collected his men, not one of whom was missing; “we have had a good night’s work.”
Flora Meredith witnessed the fight from the terrace. She could not make out things very distinctly, but she gathered that the Sepoys had been beaten, and had she known that the very men who had murdered Zula, by order of the King, were amongst the number who were lying out on the plain, pierced by English bayonets, she might have felt that her prayer to Heaven for retribution had, indeed, been heard.
CHAPTER XXXIV. A SURPRISE.
For a few days Flora was kept in comparative solitude. She did not see the old King, and Moghul Singh only visited her once a day. She recognised that all chance of escape was hopeless, unless something little short of a miracle occurred to favour her. She could not lower herself over that perpendicular wall. She could not pass the vigilant sentries on the terrace, and the door of her chamber was kept constantly locked, so that she could not go out that way. But if either, or all of these impediments had not existed it would still have been next to impossible to have escaped from the city. As she thought of this she suffered agony of mind that cannot be described. To concentrate her thoughts upon any of the luxuries which surrounded her was out of the question. There was a rare and costly library of books in her room. There were a grand-piano, a harp, and other musical instruments. There were gorgeous birds, and beautiful flowers, but all these things palled upon her senses. How could she enjoy them? Shut off as she was from everything she held dear in the world, she pined until her cheeks grew pale and her eyes lost their brightness. This did not escape the notice of Singh, and he began to think that this Englishwoman, who had put him to so much trouble, was going to die.
“Why do you sit moping all day?” he said one morning, on taking her a basket of mangoes.
“Why, indeed!” she answered. “Could you expect me to be cheerful and gay when you have brought so much misery upon me? Besides, this captivity is unendurable.”