Captain Heron was in the act of promising both, when a cry escaped him, for a sound of scattered musket-shots was heard in our rear, and flames were shooting up from every quarter of the cantonments of Jubbulpore.
'The Punjaubees have revolted!' exclaimed everyone. The sentinels were called in, and the picquet fell back at 'the double'—every heart beating wildly. Upwards of thirty straw-roofed bungalows and innumerable haystacks were blazing at once, casting a lurid glare on the country for miles around; great pinnacles of wavering and many-coloured flames, with huge volumes of smoke, rose into the air of the sultry night, the roar of the conflagration mingling with the yells of the rioters and the shrieks of the perishing.
Under Buktawur Sing, whom some other messenger had reached, the Punjaubees had revolted, looted and destroyed the bungalows, and gone off to Nagode, killing every European who failed to reach the Residency, taking with them, 'as hostages,' Mrs. Heron, with her baby, and a Lieutenant Macgregor. Wild wrath swelled up in all our hearts, as we looked around us, and collected the dead—the gashed bodies of brave men, of helpless women and children; and I shall never forget the face of Captain Heron, as he clung to Mr. Drayton's arm, and looked at the flaming bungalow to which he had brought his bride last year.
'Henceforth,' said he, 'life will seem a blank behind me—worse than all, a blank before me, with a memory floating through it—the memory of her, and our poor little baby!' and he covered his face with his hands. 'My poor little wife! that I should have been so near, and yet utterly powerless to save her!'
'Hold up, bear up, for Heaven's sake, old fellow!' I heard Drayton say; 'surely even these wretches will not have the heart to hurt a hair of her head.'
But Basil Heron answered only with a groan, yet not a tear escaped him. His grief and horror seemed too deep for even tears; every man of the Queen's Own there, felt that he could face death or anything to rescue her and make him happy; but too probably only unavailing vengeance was left to us! However, we had no time for much reflection. We took up our quarters in the Residency, all that were left of us, resolved, if attacked, to sell our lives as dearly as possible.
We entrenched and fortified it to the best of our means. The verandas were bricked up, leaving only loopholes to fire through. Sandbags were placed all round the roof, which was flat; we staked the ground all about it to prevent a rushing attack, laid in grain for three months, and got two field-pieces planted in front of the house, to command the approach. We had in our care ten ladies, a number of sergeants and writers' wives, and ever so many children. In all we numbered now only about fifty fighting men, including officers, to furnish guards night and day, as we were in hourly expectation of an attack. Poor Captain Heron—the ghost of his former self—superintended all this, but day by day went past without tidings of his wife and child, and he would rather have known that they were lying, where so many others lay, in the burial-pit close by, in rest and peace, than endure the awful uncertainty that he did as to their fate.
After a time we heard that the rebels and mutineers of that quarter were all massed, and living riotously, under the ex-Subadar-Major Buktawur Sing, in a place called Kuttingee, ten miles from Jubbulpore. They numbered several thousands—too strong for us to attack, and not even to save his wife dared Captain Heron risk the lives of his soldiers. And now it was that my comrade, Bill Brierly, came so manfully to the front. He was a queer fellow, Bill, and early in life had been—so the Queen's said—a strolling player. He was always merry and laughing, sang a good song, and was up to all kinds of larks; so now he volunteered to go to Kuttingee disguised as a budmash—one of the idle and rascally sort of irregular soldiers who loaf about bazaars, and are up to all kinds of mischief—and as such try to obtain some tidings of Mrs. Heron.
'Fifty guineas—aye, all I have in the world—are yours for any news you bring me, Brierly; even if they be evil,' said the captain, in a broken voice.
'Sir, I don't do this for money,' replied Bill; 'but for love of yourself and the poor young lady, who was so kind to me when in hospital—down with jungle fever. I risk my life daily for a shilling; why should not I do so, once at least, for her?'