rust close up to mine.

"Gil!--your mother--your sister?" cried my father wildly.

"Safe! safe!" I said faintly.

"Thank God we were in time!" cried my father. "But my boy--wounded?"

"I--don't know, father," I gasped, as everything seemed to turn round,
and then something blacker than the night came over me, and I knew no
more for some time.

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.

"His old wound, colonel. Broken out with the exertion, perhaps from a
blow," some one was saying when I opened my eyes, and saw the softly
glittering stars over my head. Then all came back with a flash, and I
tried to rise, but a hand was pressed on my chest.

"How's Brace?" I said quickly.

"Bad; but I have hopes," said Danby. "Lie still."

"But, father," I said excitedly; "you can hold the place now?"

"Oh yes; they're in full retreat; the town will be empty by daybreak.
Oh for light now, to let loose your troop, and the lancers after them."

"Better let the poor lads rest," grumbled Danby.

"Is Colonel Vincent there?" said a voice.

"Yes; what is it?" cried my father, striding in the direction of the
voice.

"They found the rajah, sir, under quite a heap of slain."

"Hah!" cried my father, and he hurried away.

It was true enough, as I soon heard. Ny Deen had fallen when trying to
make his followers face my father's charge, and somehow a feeling of
bitterness and sorrow came over me, for, in my sight, he was a brave
man, and I felt that he was justified in his struggle to cast off his
allegiance to our race.

It was as my father had said: the next day the city was emptied of all
but the peaceably disposed inhabitants, who made no secret of their
delight at the scattering of Ny Deen's forces. The best homes were
taken possession of for our sick and wounded; food was plentiful, and
those who had toiled like slaves in the enclosure had found servants
enough willing to attend upon them.

For the remnants of the rajah's forces had gone far away in utter
disbandment now their chief was no more, seeking to fight under some
other rebel leader, and the tide of war ebbed farther and farther from
Nussoor, where the wounded and sick lay in peace and comfort, tended by
loving hands.

My father insisted upon Brace being carried to the house we occupied,
and my mother and Grace were unremitting in their attention during the
next few weeks, in which I rapidly grew stronger, though Brace mended
more slowly.

It was wonderful to me to s