of them! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!"

With these words I leaped over the wall and ran at the enemy, followed
by my whole party, except one man, who actually threw down his piece
and fled, not stopping till he reached the fort. But he need not have
done this, for had he stood a moment he would have seen the whole
party of Moors break and fly without waiting to close with us, so much
were they terrified by the way in which we sprang over the wall to
come at them. And this is, indeed, the nature of all the natives of
Indostan--to give way instantly that they meet an enemy who is more
bent on fighting than they are themselves.

The only person to stand his ground was the leader of the party, who
waited for us to come up, and then, singling me out, aimed a blow at
me with his scymetar. Up to this moment I had been too busy to observe
his face, and my rage knew no bounds when I discovered that I had to
do with my renegade kinsman himself, who, it appears, had been
searching for me from the very beginning of the battle. How it would
now have gone between us I cannot say, for several of my men closing
in round us almost immediately, Rupert saw his danger and ran off, and
my duty to defend the rope-walk forbade me from following.

For the rest of that day we were not much disturbed, except by the
continual pattering of bullets, which seemed to come from all quarters
of the compass. When night came, being anxious to learn how the siege
had progressed in other quarters, I sent a messenger to the fort, who
brought back word that the enemy had made no very great impression so
far, but that everything was in such a state of confusion and dismay
at the headquarters that it was impossible we could hold out much
longer.

Not to dwell on these particulars, the next day saw the end of this
unhappy affair. Early in the forenoon the Moors made a very hot attack
on the battery at the far end of our rope-walk, and at the same time a
fresh party, headed by my wicked cousin, assailed our position. I
restrained my men from discharging their muskets till the Indians were
within a few paces of us, with the result that we did great execution,
nearly a dozen of them falling. The rest fell back for a moment, but
Gurney urging them on, they rushed up and made a desperate attempt to
clamber over the wall.

While we were hard at work keeping them off with our bayonets, I heard
a tremendous crash and shouting in the rear, from the point where t