r a wall, and suddenly a thick smell greeted my
nostrils, a smell I knew, because I had smelt it before, and yet a
smell which belonged to another world.... With tremendous
heart-beating, I looked over. It was the smell of India! Into this
quadrangle beyond hundreds of native troops were filing and piling
arms. They were Rajputs, all talking together, and greeting some of
our sailors and men, and demanding immediately _pane, pane, pane_ all
the time in a monotonous chorus. I could not understand that word. The
relief had come; this must be some sections of an advance guard which
had been flung forward, and had burst in unopposed....

We hurried forward in a sort of daze and looked for officers, to ask
them how they had come, and whether it was all right. We found a knot
of them standing-together, wiping the sweat from their streaming
faces, and calling for water. They wanted to go to the British
Legation; not to this place--what was it; where was the British
Legation? In the heat and smell and excitement those continuous
questions made one confused and angry. This advance guard which had
rushed in could not understand our all-split area; yet it had been the
saving of us. I told them where the British Legation was. I told them
to follow me; I was going to run.

I ran on, once more choking a little, and with a curious desire to
weep or shout or make uncouth noises. I was now terribly excited. I
remember I kicked my way through barricades with such energy that once
for my foolishness I came crashing down, my rifle loosing off of its
own account and the bullet passing through my hat. I did not care;
the relief had come. It was an immense occasion and I had not been
there to see it.

Along the dry canal-bed, as I ran out of the Legation Street, I noted
without amazement that tall Sikhs were picking their way in little
groups, looking dog-tired. But they were very excited, too, and waved
their hands to me as I ran, and called and cried with curious
intonations. Pioneers, smaller men, in different turbans, were already
smashing down our barricades, and clearing a road, and from the west,
the Palace side, a tremendous rifle and machine-gun fire was dusting
endlessly. I rushed into the British Legation through the canal
open-cut, and here they were, piles and piles of Indian troops,
standing and lying about and waving and talking. A British general and
his staff were seated at a little table that had been dragged out, and
we