Luffe nodded his head. But images and romantic sayings struck no response
from him. He turned to the young Sapper.

"Can we countermine?"

The young Engineer took the place of Major Dewes.

"We can try, but we are late," said he.

"It must be a sortie then," said Luffe.

"Yes," exclaimed Lynes eagerly. "Let me go, Sir Charles!"

Luffe smiled at his enthusiasm.

"How many men will you require?" he asked. "Sixty?"

"A hundred," replied Dewes promptly.

All that night Luffe superintended the digging of the countermine, while
Dewes made ready for the sortie. By daybreak the arrangements were
completed. The gunpowder bags, with their fuses attached, were
distributed, the gates were suddenly flung open, and Lynes raced out with
a hundred Ghurkhas and Sikhs across the fifty yards of open ground to the
sangar behind which the mine shaft had been opened. The work of the
hundred men was quick and complete. Within half an hour, Lynes, himself
wounded, had brought back his force, and left the mine destroyed. But
during that half-hour disaster had fallen upon the garrison. Luffe had
dropped as he was walking back across the courtyard to his office. For a
few minutes he lay unnoticed in the empty square, his face upturned to
the sky, and then a clamorous sound of lamentation was heard and an
orderly came running through the alleys of the Fort, crying out that the
Colonel Sahib was dead.

He was not dead, however. He recovered conciousness that night, and early
in the morning Dewes was roused from his sleep. He woke to find the
Doctor shaking him by the shoulder.

"Luffe wants you. He has not got very long now. He has something to say."

Dewes slipped on his clothes, and hurried down the stairs. He followed
the Doctor through the little winding alleys which gave to the Fort the
appearance of a tiny village. It was broad daylight, but the fortress was
strangely silent. The people whom he passed either spoke not at all or
spoke only in low tones. They sat huddled in groups, waiting. Fear was
abroad that morning. It was known that the brain of the defence was
dying. It was known, too, what cruel fate awaited those within the Fort,
if those without ever forced the gates and burst in upon their victims.

Dewes found the Political Officer propped up on pillows on his camp-bed.
The door from the courtyard was open, and the morning light poured
brightly into the room.

"Sit here, close to me, Dewes," said Luffe in a whisper, "