"'But we are fighting for revenge, Phil,' said a soldier, whose wife and children had perished at Meerut.
"'True,' replied Ernslie, through his clenched teeth; 'and times there are, by Jove! when even revenge may be just and holy!'
"'Silence!' growled Sergeant-Major Pivett, still in pursuance of his feud.
"'Down, men—down!' cried I, 'for here comes a shell.'
"Humming through the air, but, oddly enough, not whistling, a ten-inch shell fell near me, and, with a thud, half sunk into the soil. Strange to say, it was without a fuze; the touch-hole was simply plugged by a common cork, in which a half-scorched quill-pen was stuck. After lying flat on our faces, and watching it uneasily for some time, and all fearing a snare, or the explosion of some poisonous stuff, I ventured to roll it over with a shovel, and found that it was empty, or quite unloaded. Pivett, who certainly did not lack courage, sprang forward, and, extracting the cork from the fuze-hole, found a scrap of paper attached to it, and on the scrap was written, with ink that seemed to have been composed of gunpowder and water, these words:—
"'I am a prisoner in Kotah. The work of the sappers is useless, for where they are mining the rock is solid. There are seventy guns in this place, and I am chained to one of the seventeen in the right bastion. If the front gate is blown up, the place may be carried at the point of the bayonet, as the way beyond is quite open.
"'A. ERNSLIE, private, H.M. —th Dragoons.'
"'I knew that fellow had deserted to the enemy!' growled the sergeant-major.
"'Silence,' said I, 'and do not be unjust in your hatred.'
"'It's a message-shell, sir, a message-shell, and fired by my father, poor man. Heaven help him!—he is in the hands of the Sepoys!' exclaimed young Ernslie, whom, with the shell and note, I took at once to the general, whose tent was by the margin of the lake.