a determined rush by the enemy must swamp the little band. The
question was, Would this rush come before the men could reload? They
were hard at work charging their muskets. He shouted to the Sikhs in the
house to come to the support of their comrades, and then ran to the back
to see how things were faring there.

Ahmed was surprised to find things very quiet in that direction. He
heard the sound of a pistol-shot from above. The doctor had stationed
himself at the back window, which had been partially shuttered, and
fired one pistol while the khansaman loaded the other. He was a fine
pistol-shot. The wall at the back prevented the mob in the narrow lane
from firing at the window. But, as soon as a head showed itself above
the wall, the doctor never failed to hit. For a few minutes the
mutineers were baffled, but they soon rose to the situation, swarmed
into a house on the other side of the lane, beyond pistol-shot, and
began to fire at the shuttered window with their muskets. In a minute or
two the doctor was forced from his position. A splinter from the
woodwork had slightly wounded him; to stay where he was would have been
merely to court death.

Once more the enemy in the lane were emboldened to climb the wall and
gain the roof of the colonnade. They also swarmed into the gardens of
the next houses, and began to mount the wall from three sides. One of
the corporals had ordered the men to reserve their fire until the enemy
began to leap down into the garden, knowing that half-a-dozen men within
were equal to many times their number dropping one by one from the roof
of the colonnade. But the situation was now changed. It was not a
question of two or three to one, but thirty or forty to one, and a very
determined rush by the enemy might cut the men off from the house
altogether. Ahmed saw the danger. Rushing across the garden, he called
to the Sikhs to make a dash for the doorway. The men instantly obeyed;
in the excitement of the moment they did not stop to question who it was
that was giving them orders; it was instinctive with them to obey
commands delivered in that sharp, decisive way. But the corporal did not
understand the words: he only saw the Sikhs rushing back to the house;
and he turned on Ahmed and began to ask, in the lurid vernacular of the
British soldier, what he meant by interfering. There was no time to
answer. The enemy seized this moment to charge. Ahmed with his sword cut
down one of the men befor