n Forster, as we have just agreed that our only chance
is to obtain aid from one of the stations, and as you are the only
volunteer for the service, I do not see that I can decline to accept
your offer. At which station do you think you would be most likely to
find a force that could help us?"

"I should say Lucknow, Major. If help is to be obtained anywhere, I
should say it was there."

"Yes, I think that is the most hopeful. You will start at once; I
suppose the sooner the better."

"As soon as they are fairly asleep; say twelve o'clock."

"Very well. I will go and write a dispatch for you to carry, giving an
account of the fix we are in here. How will you sally out?"

"I should think the easiest plan would be to make a gap in the sandbags
in the breach, lead the horse till fairly outside, and then mount."

"I think you had better take a spare horse with you," the Doctor said;
"it will make a difference if you are chased, if you can change from one
to the other. Bathurst told me to say whoever went could have his horse,
which is a long way the best in the station. I should fancy as good as
your own."

"I don't know," Forster said; "led horses are a nuisance; still, as you
say, it might come in useful, if it is only to loose and turn down a
side road, and so puzzle anyone who may be after you in the dark."

The Major and Forster left the roof together.

"Well, that is a rum go," Wilson said. "If it had been anyone but
Forster I should have said that he funked and was taking the opportunity
to get out of it, but everyone knows that he has any amount of pluck;
look how he charged those Sepoys single handed."

"There are two sorts of pluck, Wilson," the Doctor said dryly. "There is
the pluck that will carry a man through a desperate action and lead him
to do deeds that are the talk of an army. Forster possesses that kind of
pluck in an unusual degree. He is almost an ideal cavalryman--dashing,
reckless; riding with a smile on his lips into the thickest of the fray,
absolutely careless of life when his blood is up.

"There is another sort of courage, that which supports men under long
continued strain, and enables them, patiently and steadfastly, to face
death when they see it approaching step by step. I doubt whether Forster
possesses that passive sort of courage. He would ride up to a cannon's
mouth, but would grow impatient in a. square of infantry condemned to
remain inactive under a heavy artillery fire.