“We might get reinforcements in the morning, Govind Singh.”
“And again, we might not, sahib!”
“I sent a number of messengers before we were shut in.”
“Yes, sahib—and to whom? To men who would ask you to reinforce them if they could get word to you! Tomorrow our rear will be surrounded, too; they have laid planks across the little streams behind us, and are preparing to drag guns to that side, too. Now, sahib, we have fire left in us. We can smite yet, and do damage while we die. Tomorrow night may find us decimated and without heart for the finish. I advise you to advance at dawn, sahib!”
That advice came as a great relief to Byng-bahadur. He had been the first to see the hopelessness of the position, and every instinct that he had told him to finish matters, not in the last reeking ditch, but ahead, where the enemy would suffer fearfully while a desperate charge roared into them, to peter out when the last man went down fighting. Surrender was unthinkable, and in any event would have been no good, for the mutineers would be sure to butcher all their prisoners; his only other chance had been to hold out until relief came, and that hope was now forlorn.
A Mohammedan stepped out of blackness and saluted him—a native officer, in charge of a handful of irregular cavalry, whose horses had all been shot.
“Well—what is it?”
“This, sahib. Do we die here? I and my men would prefer to die yonder, where a mutineer or two would pay the price!”
A Ghoorka officer—small as a Japanese and sturdy-looking came up next. The whole thing was evidently preconcerted.
“My men ask leave to show the way into the ranks ahead, General-sahib! They are overweary of this shambles!”