from the wakeful lines, and the silence
of the graveyard followed.

"There is our sign, sahib!" laughed the Mohammedan. The old Sikh nodded
and the Ghoorka grinned. "It is the end!" he said, without a trace of
discouragement.

"Nonsense!" said Byng, his face, too, turned upward.

"What, then, does it mean, sahib?"

"That--it means that God Almighty has relieved a picket! We're the
picket. We're relieved! We advance at dawn, and we'll get through
somehow! Join your commands, gentlemen, and explain the details
carefully to your men--let's have no misunderstandings."

The dawn rose gold and beautiful upon a sleepless camp that reeked and
steamed with hell-hot suffering. It showed the rebels stationary, still
in swarming lines, but scouts reported several thousand of them moving
in a body from the flank toward the British rear.

"What proportion of the rebel force?" asked Byng. "New arrivals, or some
of the old ones taking up a new position?"

"The same crowd, sir. They're just moving round to hem us in
completely."

"So much the better for us, then! That leaves fewer for us to deal with
in front."

As he spoke another man came running to report the arrival of five
gallopers, coming hell-bent-for leather, one by one and scattered,
with the evident purpose of allowing one man to get through, whatever
happened.

"That'll be relief at last!" said Byng-bahadur. And, instead of ordering
the advance immediately, he waited, scouring the sky-line with his
glasses.

"Yes--dust--lance-heads--one--two--three divisions, coming in a hurry."

Being on rising ground, he saw the distant relieving force much sooner
than the rebels did, and he knew that it was help for him on the way
some time before the first of the five gallopers careered into the camp,
and shouted:

"Cunnigan-bahadur comes with fifteen hundred!"

"Fifteen hundred," muttered Byng. "That merely serves to postpone the
finish by an hour or two!"

But he waited; and presently the rebel scouts brought word, and their
leaders, too, became aware of reinforcements on the way for somebody.
They made the mistake, though, of refusing to believe that any help
could be coming for the British, and by the time that messengers had
hurried from the direction of the British rear, to tell of gallopers who
had ridden past them and been swallowed by the shouting British lines,
three squadrons on fresh horses were close enough to be reckoned
dangerous.

"Is that a gun th