icket were now to be seen through the dense mist as clearing away from
the front of the line; the well-trained fugitives dashed round the
flanks and re-formed under cover of the race stand.

"Steady, my lads, aim low!" shouted the major, as a dark, dense mass of
men loomed through the fog, and from the race stand and the stockade
near, came the quick, sharp fire of the English musketry, poured at
twenty paces distant into the serried ranks of the mutineers.

Staggered by the volley, the attacking party for an instant fell back,
the sharp cry of pain, mixing with the yell for revenge, as confident in
their numbers, they poured in volley upon volley, and again advanced,
literally swarming round the English outposts.

The guns of Wyndham's entrenchment were now heard, replied to hot and
fast by those of the Gwalior mutineers, while their Artillery from the
town opened a heavy fire on the Dragoon Barracks. Fearfully
overmatched, the 150th fought on, the bayonet doing its deadly work,
while the clubbed muskets came crashing down on the heads of the
assailants as they appeared above the stockade, the deep oath, the loud
shout of triumph, the yell of pain, and the scream of agony, mixed with
the rattle of the deadly volley poured into the dense files of the rebel
force.

"Remember, my lads," shouted Hughes, "the safety of the women and
children are in our hands," as his sword descended on the dark shako of
a man who had just gained the race stand, and was firing his pistol into
the ranks of the 150th. "Ye fight for your wives and your children," he
shouted, as the man, with a deep groan, fell back, impaled on the
clustering bayonets of his friends below.

A loud cheer answered his words, taken up by the defenders of the
stockade, but now a second column of the enemy, nearly a thousand
strong, came dashing along. They were fresh men, and pouring in a
volley as they came, they took the little force in flank, seeming to
bury it under their heavy mass, as they dashed on. The fight became a
_melee_ now.

Major Hughes had received a ball in the shoulder. His adjutant lay on
the planking of the stand, with a bullet through his forehead, his fair
hair bedabbled in a stream of blood, the groans of the wounded, the sad,
pitiful cries for water, rang around him, while the heavy guns from the
town and entrenchment, combined with the rattling volleys of musketry,
to make a fiendish uproar, such as few had ever heard.

There wa