“So-so. But you know, Mrs North, if it hadn’t been for the Major and Colonel Graham, we might as well have taken refuge in a fowl-house as in this place. Long ago they got in all the stores they could without attracting attention, and everything else was ready to be moved at a moment’s notice. They had their plans all cut and dried, too, and every man found his post assigned to him. The walls are good against anything but artillery, and the towers and loopholes and gates have all been put into some sort of repair.”
“Yes,” said Georgia, “and that is the best of the situation. Now for the worst.”
“Well, you know, it would all have been worst but for the Major, and every soul inside the walls is blessing him. The worst is that we have scraped together a preposterous number of non-combatants—some of them the wives and children of the sowars, of course, but a good many of them Hindus and bazaar-people of that sort, whom it would have been sheer murder to leave outside, but who will be no good to us whatever. All the old soldiers have been re-enlisted, and the boys are to make themselves useful, but there is a helpless crowd of women and children and elderly people to dispose of somehow. That’s the secret of your close quarters here. We can’t have the poor wretches anywhere near the walls, so they are put away in the central courts, where we can keep an eye upon them, and overawe them if necessary.”
“Poor things! I must go and see after them,” murmured Georgia.
“Of course, with all these extra mouths, we are not provisioned for a regular siege, unless we eat the horses, which ought to be saved in case we have to cut our way out at last. But the worst thing is that we have no artillery, not so much as a field-gun, and very little of anything else. The regiment have their carbines, of course, but the Commissioner’s Sikhs are the only men with rifles—except those of us who go in for big game shooting. However, as a set-off against that, the enemy have no big guns either. And then, it’s about the best season of the year for moving troops on this frontier, so that we ought to be relieved before very long.”
“But that’s only if the enemy don’t cut the canals.”
“Yes, I’m afraid they’re too sharp not to do that. It looks as if a dust-storm was coming on, which would help them if they set to work at once.”
“Have they made any pretence of offering terms?”
“The Amir sent his mullah this morning with a flag of truce. He couldn’t be allowed inside, so the Commissioner and Colonel Graham spoke to him from the walls. But there was no accepting what he offered.”
“What was it?”