e whole of the guns were brought into
action, keeping up a regular steady fire, one which told me that an
advance was being made by infantry, which the firing was to cover.

I began to eat, trying to be perfectly calm, but at the first mouthful I
broke down. It was impossible, and, jumping, up I went and sat down by
the window, to listen to the firing, and try to picture to myself what
was going on.

It was weary work. All imagination, and I knew it; but still I could
not keep from picturing the scene, especially when the firing suddenly
ceased. My cheeks grew flushed then, and I seemed to hear the order,
see the men trot up with the limbers, the gunners hook on the trail of
the gun-carriage, and then spring to their seats on horse or limber, and
go off at a gallop.

"No," I muttered, "come on at a gallop," to take up a fresh position.

I could have sworn that the next minute I should hear them open again,
and I seemed to see the swift horses going along at full speed to come
to a sudden halt, the men spring down, unhook, and bring the guns into
action again. But that minute passed, then another, and another--long,
weary minutes--till quite ten must have gone by before I heard the
familiar dull report again, and now, to my misery, I acknowledged to
myself that it must be from fully a mile further away.

Four guns were fired, or two twice over, I could not, of course, tell
which. Then the firing ceased, and a dull feeling of misery came over
me, for it meant retiring. They must be driven back by the superior
force of the rajah's army.

I turned away from the window with a feeling of depression that was
terrible, and, try how I would, to keep from thinking, I kept on seeing
the fierce-looking lancers of Ny Deen making furious charges at perhaps
a mere skeleton of a regiment of foot, which grew gradually less and
less, till the men scattered, and were ridden down.

Oh how vivid that all seemed, till I saw that which was real, and not
imaginary. Salaman and the two attendants patiently watching me, as I
began once more to walk up and down.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

I passed the whole of the day in misery, thirsting for news with a very
great thirst, but none came. The servants about the palace evidently
knew nothing though, if they had, they would not have dared to speak.

It was quite plain, from the noise, that the town was crowded, and in a
state of excitement, but the sounds were at a distance, and t