of conflict. There had been another
rush up the ladders, met by a fusillade and a charge by the garrison
under the British corporal. Again the enemy had been hurled back. Ahmed
arrived on the scene just in time to see the last man disappearing from
the wall, transfixed by the corporal's bayonet.

Again there was silence both at the back and in front of the house. At
the back the crowd of mutineers in the garden had been suddenly seized
with panic, their comrades dropping one by one beneath the fire of the
garrison without being able to do anything effectual in reply. They had
swarmed back over the colonnade, and regained the lane behind or the
gardens of the adjacent houses.

Ahmed seized the interval of quiet to hurry up to the doctor, whom he
found somewhat shaken by his injury, but perfectly calm. He was, indeed,
on the point of descending, to take more direct and effectual command
than was possible from the room above.

"I have had a knock," he said, with a smile, "but I think I can manage
to crawl down."

"Not so, sahib," said Ahmed. "They are good fighters, the men below, and
the English naik is a very good man. But if the sahib would go to the
roof perhaps he might call down word of what the Purbiyas are doing. The
khansaman and I can help the sahib to go up."

"Chup! I am not so bad as that. Lend me your arm."

He went up, supported by Ahmed. Together they crawled across the roof to
the parapet and peeped over. There was a confused hubbub below. In the
street at the front of the house they saw Minghal Khan with a group of
sepoys, but the greater part of the mob consisted of Irregulars, and
their numbers were much increased since the beginning of the attack.

For a time there was a lull; but ere long it became apparent that the
enemy were intending a new move. Men appeared on the roof of a house on
the far side of the road opposite the doctor's gateway. Others at the
same time crowded at the upper windows. A preliminary shot from one of
the windows showed that the new position occupied by the enemy dominated
the compound in front of the doctor's house, for one of the Sikhs was
wounded by it. Indeed, the doctor wondered whether the men could be
withdrawn safely from their position underneath the front wall. In
running the gauntlet over the exposed portion of the compound, many of
them would probably fall beneath the muskets of the enemy in the house
opposite. Seeing for a moment that there was no threateni