‘They come, Huzrut,’ said Rajah Khan, trying to rouse the dying man; ‘they come, they are near, let us tell them who thou art, they will spare thee.’
‘Spare me!’ he cried, rousing himself at the last words. ‘No! they burn for revenge, and I should be hung like a dog; no! I will die here.’ He was very faint, and spoke feebly.
‘Here is a prince—I’ll be the first!’ cried a soldier, dashing into the gateway and snatching rudely at the rosary which was around the Sultaun’s neck.
It rallied the expiring lamp of life. ‘Dog of a kafir! son of an unchaste mother!’ cried the Sultaun, gnashing his teeth as he seized a sword which lay by him, ‘get thee to hell!’ and he struck at him with all his might; it was the last effort of life, but it was not fatal.
‘Damnation!’ muttered the man, setting his teeth with the pain of the wound, as he raised his musket.
He fired, the ball pierced the skull, the Sultaun’s eyes glared for an instant, quivered in their sockets, then his head fell, and he was dead. The lion of the faith, the refuge of the world, had gone to his account!
‘Well met, noble Kasim,’ cried Philip Dalton, as heading his party he dashed down the cavalier which had first been gained, and was now in the body of the place; ‘keep with me; thou knowest the prisons?’
‘Every one, colonel; but haste! they may even now be destroying them.’
Philip shuddered, there was no time for thought. Many men were around him, and they rushed on, led by Kasim Ali, whose reddened sword, and armour sprinkled with blood, showed how he had been employed.
Eagerly, and with excitement which hardly admitted thought, so engrossing was it, did those two and Charles Hayward search every part of the Fort, and every place where it was possible that prisoners could have been concealed: they found none. And when the palace was opened they rushed into its most secret prisons and burst them open; they found traces of recent habitation by Englishmen; and while their fears were horribly confirmed, their last hopes for Herbert Compton departed.