your wounded
where they are. I never saw a cannon bleed before. How's that?"

He spurred his horse over to where one of Bellairs' guns was being run
forward into place again and Colonel Carter followed him. There was
blood dripping from the muzzle of it.

"We're short of water, sir!" said Colonel Carter.

And as he spoke a gunner dipped his sponge into a pool of blood and
rammed it home.

Bellairs was standing between his two guns, looking like the shadow of
himself, worn out with lack of sleep, disheveled, wounded. There was
blood dripping from his forehead and he wore his left arm in a sling
made from his shirt.

"Fire!" he ordered, and the two guns barked in unison and jumped back
two yards or more.

"If you'll look," said General Turner, plucking at the colonel's
sleeve, "you'll see a handful of native cavalry over yonder behind the
enemy--rather to the enemy's left--there between those two clouds of
smoke. D'you see them?"

"They look like Sikhs or Rajputs," said the colonel.

"Yes. Don't they? I'd like you to keep an eye on them. They've come
up from the rear. I caught sight of them quite a while ago and I can't
quite make them out. It's strange, but I can't believe that they belong
to the enemy. D'you see?--there--they've changed direction. They're
riding as though they intended to come round the enemy's left flank!"

"By gad, they are! Look! The enemy are moving to cut them off!"

"I must get back to the other wing!" said General Turner. "But that
looks like the making of an opportunity! Keep both eyes lifting, Carter,
and advance the moment you see any confusion in the enemy's ranks."

He rode off, and Colonel Carter stared long and steadily at the
approaching horsemen. He saw a dense mass of the enemy, about a thousand
strong, detach itself from the left wing and move to intercept them, and
he noticed that the movement made a tremendous difference to the ranks
opposed to him. He stepped up to young Bellairs and touched his sleeve.
Bellairs started like a man roused from a dream.

"That's your wife over there!" said Colonel Carter. "There can't be any
other white woman here-abouts riding with a Rajput escort!"

Bellairs gripped the colonel's outstretched arm.

"Where?" he almost screamed. "Where? I don't see her!"

"There, man! There, where that mass of men is moving! Look! By the Lord
Harry! He's charging right through the mob! That's Mahommed Khan, I'll
bet a fortune! Now's our chance Bugler