"Thank God we have found you alive, Bullen! We hadn't even a hope
that you had survived; for we found poor Macintyre and his party,
all killed and cut up. We started this morning, as soon as your
absence was discovered, and have been searching ever since; but I
doubt if we should ever have found you, had we not heard firing
going on up here. I don't think men were ever so pleased as ours,
when we heard it; for it showed that you, or some of your party,
were still holding out.

"You must have had desperate fighting, for there are some forty
bodies lying near the door; and we know that the enemy always carry
off their dead, when they can. You must have accounted for a good
many more, who have been taken away in the darkness."

"We have done our best, you may be sure," Lisle said. "We have lost
two men killed, and four out of the others are wounded. I myself
have got a rifle ball in my shoulder; at least, it is not there
now, for it went right through. Fortunately it missed the bone, so
I shall be all right again, in a day or two."

"How many were you attacked by?"

"I should say there must have been two hundred. That was about the
number, when they first attacked."

"You must have been exposed to a tremendous fire. The walls are
everywhere pitted with bullet marks, and the upper story seems
perfectly riddled with balls; but of course none of you were up
there."

"Yes, we used it as a lookout. As you see, I made four loopholes in
each side and, as we lay well back, their bullets passed over our
heads.

"What we want now is water. We drank the last drop, when we saw you
coming. We had scarcely a mouthful each, and we have not had much
more during the siege."

Flasks were instantly produced, and each man drank his fill.

"And now we had better be off," the officer in command of the
relief party said. "Likely enough the Afridis will be down upon us,
as soon as we move."

They were, indeed, several times fired at, as they made their way
down to the camp, and at one time the resistance was formidable;
but they were presently joined by another party from the camp, and
the Afridis therefore drew off.

Lisle received many hearty congratulations on his return, and many
officers of other regiments came in to shake his hand.

"I shall send in your name again, Mr. Bullen," his colonel said,
after Lisle had made his report. "It was a most gallant action, to
defend yourself so long, with only seven men, against a coupl