and there was one spot of color in the pall now, or else a
hole in it.

"What d'you suppose that is burning over there?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

"How far away is it?"

"Very hard to tell on a night like this, sir. It might be ten miles
away and might be twenty. By my reckoning it's on our road, though, and
somewhere between here and Jundhra."

"So it seems to me; our road swings round to the right presently,
doesn't it? That'll lead us right to it. That would make it Doonha more
or less. D'you suppose it's at Doonha?"

"I was thinking it might be, sir. If it's Doonha, it means that the
sepoy barracks and all the stores are burning--there's nothing else
there that would make all that flame!"

"There are two companies of the Thirty-third there, too."

"Yes, sir, but they're under canvas; tents would blaze up, but they'd
die down again in a minute. That fire's steady and growing bigger!"

"It's the sepoy barracks, then!"

"Seems so to me, sir!"

"Halt!" roared Bellairs. The advance-guard kicked up a little shower
of sparks, trace-chains slacked with a jingle and the jolting ceased.
Bellairs rode up to the advance-guard.

"Now, Sergeant," he ordered, "it looks as though that were the Doonha
barracks burning over yonder. There's no knowing, though, what it is.
Send four men on, two hundred yards ahead of you, and you and the rest
keep a good two hundred yards ahead of the guns. See that the men keep
on the alert, and mind that they spare their horses as much as possible.
If there's going to be trouble, we may just as well be ready for it!"

"Very good, sir!"

"Go ahead, then!"

At a word from the sergeant, four men clattered off and were swallowed
in the darkness. A minute later the advance-guard followed them and
then, after another minute's pause, young Bellairs' voice was raised
into a ringing shout again.

"Section, advance! Trot, march!"

The trace-chains tightened, and the clattering, bumping, jingling
procession began again, its rear brought up by the six-horse
ammunition-wagon. They rode speechless for the best part of an hour,
each man's eyes on the distant conflagration that had begun now to light
up the whole of the sky ahead of them. They still rode in darkness, but
they seemed to be approaching the red rim of the Pit. Huge, billowing
clouds of smoke, red-lit on the under side, belched upward to the
blackness overhead, and a something that was scarcely sound--for it was
yet too distant--w