ers?"

"No," I said--"not in a case like this."

"Glad of it," he says sincerely; "because, do you know, old man, I've
polished off such a thundering lot, that, I've got to be quite narvous
about getting killed myself. Only think having forty or fifty
black-looking beggars rising up against you in kingdom come, and
pointing at you, and saying: `That's the chap as shot me!'"

"I don't think any soldier, acting under orders, who does his duty in
defence of women and children, need fear to lie down and die," I said.

I never saw Measles look soft but that once, as, laying down his ramrod,
he took my hand in his, and looked in my face for a bit; then he shook
my hand softly, and nodded his head several times.

"How's Harry Lant?" he says at last.

"Very bad," I said.

"Poor old chap. But tell him I've paid some of the beggars out for it.
Mind you tell him--it'll make him feel comfortable like, and ease his
mind."

I nodded, and then told him about the plan.

"Well," he said, as he slowly and thoughtfully polished his gun-barrel,
"it might do, and it mightn't. Seems a rum dodge; but, anyhow, we might
try."

"I shall want you to help make the bridge," I says.

"All right, matey; but I don't, somehow, like leaving the beggars all
that ammunition;" and then he loaded his piece very thoughtfully, but
only to rouse up directly after, for the mutineers began firing again;
and Captain Dyer giving the order, our men replied swift and fast at
every black face that shewed itself for an instant.

That was a day: hot, so that everything you went near seemed burning.
The walls even sent forth a heat of their own; and if it hadn't been for
the chatties down below, we should have had to give up, for the tank was
now completely dried, and the flies buzzing about its mud-caked bottom.
But the women went round from man to man with water and biscuit so that
no one left his post, and every time the black scoundrels tried to make
a lodgment near the gate, half were shot down, and the rest glad enough
to get back into shelter.

Towards that weary slow-coming evening, though, after we had beaten them
back--or, rather, after my brave comrades had beaten them back half a
score of times--I saw that something was up; and as soon as I saw what
that something was, I knew that it was all over, for our men were too
much cut up and disheartened for any more gallant sorties.

I've not said any more about the guns, only that we spiked the