ate fight for a
moment. I remember that Subadar Piran--one of the best native officers
in the regiment, by the way--made a rush at me, and I shot him through
the head with a revolver. At the same moment a ball hit me, and down I
went. At the moment a Sepoy fell dead across me, hiding me partly from
sight. The fight lasted a minute or two longer. I fancy a few fellows
escaped, for I heard shots outside. Then the place became quiet. In
another minute I heard a crackling, and saw that the devils had set the
mess-room on fire. One of our men, who was lying close by me, got up
and crawled to the window, but he was shot down the moment he showed
himself. I was hesitating whether to do the same or to lie still and be
smothered, when suddenly I rolled the dead sepoy off, crawled into the
ante-room half-suffocated by smoke, raised the lid of a very heavy
trap-door, and stumbled down some steps into a place, half storehouse
half cellar, under the mess-room. How I knew about it being there I
don't know. The trap closed over my head with a bang. That is all I
remember.'

"'Well, Charley, curiously enough my dream was also about an
extraordinary escape from danger, lasting, like yours, only a minute or
two. The first thing I remember--there seems to have been something
before, but what, I don't know--I was on horseback, holding a very
pretty but awfully pale girl in front of me. We were pursued by a whole
troop of Sepoy cavalry, who were firing pistol-shots at us. We were not
more than seventy or eighty yards in front, and they were gaining fast,
just as I rode into a large deserted temple. In the centre was a huge
stone figure. I jumped off my horse with the lady, and as I did so she
said, 'Blow out my brains, Edward; don't let me fall alive into their
hands.'

"'Instead of answering, I hurried her round behind the idol, pushed
against one of the leaves of a flower in the carving, and the stone
swung back, and showed a hole just large enough to get through, with a
stone staircase inside the body of the idol, made no doubt for the
priest to go up and give responses through the mouth. I hurried the girl
through, crept in after her, and closed the stone, just as our pursuers
came clattering into the courtyard. That is all I remember.'

"'Well, it is monstrously rum,' Charley said, after a pause. 'Did you
understand what the old fellow was singing about before he gave us the
pipes?'

"'Yes; I caught the general drift. It was an en