“It must be quite noon, I think,” said Eveleen.
“Noon? and we went into it at nine! Has the cavalry charged yet, do you know?”
“The whole army might have charged, but we wouldn’t know. There is not a thing to be seen for dust.”
“Believe me, you’d know if the Bengalis charged. The ground would shake—quite a different feeling from the rumble the guns make. Oh, why, why ain’t they charging the village? That was what the General sent ’em to support the Khemistan Horse for—we all knew it—to make a diversion if he was hard pressed. He can’t keep it up if they don’t—there’s a hundred Arabits to every man of ours. We shall be cut to pieces—— No, no—listen; what’s that?”
He tried to start up, but Eveleen held him down gently. “I hear, I hear!” she cried, almost as excited as himself. “A different sound entirely—like rolling thunder! I feel it more than I hear. Oh, will it, will it be the charge?”
“It must be a charge, but is it their cavalry or ours? No, help me to turn my head, please——” and with a great effort he got his ear near the ground. “It is ours—the noise is going away from us. This is victory, then.”
For a few minutes the din of firing broke out with such force as to drown all other sounds. Then it became broken and irregular, then seemed to pass away altogether to the right. Neither Eveleen nor the wounded boy could say a word. With parted lips and wildly beating hearts they stared at one another, afraid to move lest they should lose some pregnant sound as the minutes rolled on. Then they both became aware that the sound of the firing had ceased. From far, far in the distance came a thin flat cheer, then another, then a third.
“We’ve won!” said young Kenton. “I don’t mind now,” and fainted.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MORROW OF VICTORY.
“We are honoured, Mrs Ambrose,” said Sir Harry, with his most courtly bow, as Eveleen hurried out of her tent—as quickly as its extreme smallness would allow—to receive the dusty and grimy company that rode up. The baggage and hospitals had moved on in the wake of the tide of battle, and the night’s bivouac was on the other side of the watercourse which had served the enemy as a trench—close to the stretch of ground on which the Khans and their army had been encamped the night before. “Valour would lose half its reward without the approbation of the fair.”