"For God's sake, beware!" exclaimed the unfortunate man, making all the resistance that rage, just indignation, and fear of a sudden death, such as that endured by his friend Burnes, would inspire; so finding it impossible to carry him off, Ackbar shot him dead with one of the beautiful pistols, a present from his victim; and ere the corpse touched the ground it was impaled by a hundred swords and bayonets. The head was then hewn off and upheld by the hair.
Captain Trevor, of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry, also fell, the victim of innumerable wounds. Mackenzie and Lawrence were borne off towards the city by one horde of fanatics, while another, led by Ameen Oollah Khan, with juzails cocked and swords drawn, and with flashing eyes and infuriated faces and gestures, uttering screams of "Kaffirs—Feringhees—Sugs!" (infidels—Europeans—dogs), rushed upon Waller, Denzil, Polwhele, and two other officers, who could hear the shrill cries of dismay uttered by the ladies on the wall of the cantonments, where now, when it was too late, old Elphinstone had ordered the drums to beat to arms, and General Trecarrel brought the cavalry, half-saddled, from their stables.
"Stick close to me, Devereaux," cried Waller, shortening his reins and raising himself in his stirrups. He escaped two juzail balls, and parried a most vicious poke of a lance made at him by Shireen Khan; and then by one tremendous blow, which, however, fell harmlessly on the thick folds of the loonghee or scarlet cap of that personage, he tumbled him from his perch on the camel's hump. The next blow he gave rid Denzil of Abdallah, the Arab Hadji, who, shouting "Mohammed resoul Allah!" had actually sprung, with all the fierce activity of a tree-tiger, upon his horse's crupper, and was about to plunge an Afghan dagger—a formidable weapon, as it is twenty-four inches in length, broader than a sword-blade, and sharp as a razor—into his back or throat; it only grazed his neck, however, when Waller's sword, with all the impetus that strength of arm and speed of horse could give it, was through and through the body of the savage fanatic.
"There is another nigger sent to the other end of nowhere," cried Waller. "Dash right through them, gentlemen; we must cut for our lives!"
Riding close together and abreast, the five officers, making a charge right through the mob (who were chiefly Ghilzees, and who, in their blind fury, wrath, and confusion, wounded and shot each other), succeeded by hard riding in reaching the cantonments, the gates of which were instantly closed and barricaded.
Polwhele left his sword in one man's body, so firmly was it wedged in the spinal column. Waller's sword was only one of the rubbishy regulation blades of Sheffield, a poor weapon when opposed to the keenly tempered sabres of those Afghan warriors, yet towering over them all, his bulk, strength, and stature had availed him greatly; he had shot two, and cut down three. Denzil, though half stunned by confusion at the suddenness of the whole affair, and by the explosion of a matchlock close to his face, struck about manfully, and must have sent at least one Mussulman on his way to the dark-eyed girls of paradise; for when he dismounted, breathless and excited, within the gates, he found his sword and right hand both covered with blood.
In the exasperation of his mind at Rose Trecarrel, the tumult of the time was a relief to Denzil's mind; and he was not sorry that she, through her lorgnette, had seen him, sword in hand, among the Afghans.
On this conflict the poor ladies had gazed, with faces paled by terror, and lips that were mute, save when a shriek escaped them involuntarily as blood spirted upward in the air, as a man or horse went down, yet they gazed with the strange fascination that the ferocity of a conflict between men—more than all armed men—will sometimes have for the gentlest woman, for it seemed a species of wild phantasmagoria. But they wrung their hands and wept piteously; for they saw the terrible butchery of Sir William Macnaughten and of Captain Trevor, and could only tremble for the too-probable fate of Captain Lawrence and Captain Mackenzie, who, in sight of the entire troops in the cantonment, and in sight of all their friends, were borne off captives amid a yelling horde, whose weapons, spear-heads, crooked sabres, and polished horseshoes, flashed out brightly from amid a cloud of dust that rolled away towards the Lahore Gate of the now-hostile city of Cabul.
"Well, this is a shindy that will suffice to scare our blue devils for awhile," said Polwhele, with a grim smile on his dark face.
"Denzil, my boy," said Waller, "you had a narrow squeak for your life; that Arab wasp's dagger was pretty close."