the Ghurkas this sight and sound came all of a sudden, as they were
defending what they took to be a determined attack on their own
position. The village was lost ere they knew it was attacked. And two
steamers full of troops, anchored off the town, saw it, too. They were
on their way up country, and had halted there that night, anchored in
the stream. They were close by, but could not fire, for there was no
telling friend from foe.

Before the relief party of Ghurkas could come swarming down the hill,
only two hundred yards, before the boats could land the eager troops
from the steamers, the rebels were gone. They went through the village
and out of the south gate. They had fulfilled their threat and destroyed
the town. They had killed the men they had declared they would kill. The
firing died away from the fort side, and the enemy were gone, no one
could tell whither, into the night.

Such a scene of desolation as that village was next day! It was all
destroyed--every house. All the food was gone, all furniture, all
clothes, everything, and here and there was a corpse in among the
blackened cinders. The whole countryside was terror-stricken at this
failure to defend those who had depended on us.

I do not think this was a particularly gallant act, but it was a very
able one. It was certainly war. It taught us a very severe lesson--more
severe than a personal reverse would have been. It struck terror in the
countryside. The memory of it hampered us for very long; even now they
often talk of it. It was a brutal act--that of a brigand, not a soldier.

But there was no want of courage. If these men, inferior in number, in
arms, in everything, could do this under the lead of a robber chief,
what would they not have done if well led, if well trained, if well
armed?

Of desperate encounters between our troops and the insurgents I could
tell many a story. I have myself seen such fights. They nearly always
ended in our favour--how could it be otherwise?

There was Ta Te, who occupied a pagoda enclosure with some eighty men,
and was attacked by our mounted infantry. There was a long fight in that
hot afternoon, and very soon the insurgents' ammunition began to fail,
and the pagoda was stormed. Many men were killed, and Ta Te, when his
men were nearly all dead, and his ammunition quite expended, climbed up
the pagoda wall, and twisted off pieces of the cement and threw them at
the troops. He would not surrender--not he--a