HAPTER SIX.

But it was always the same; and though time was when I could have
laughed as merrily as did that little Jenny Wren of the colonel's at
Harry's antics, I couldn't laugh now, because, it always seemed as if
they were made an excuse to get Miss Ross and her maid out with the
children.

A party of jugglers, or dancing-girls, or a man or two with pipes and
snakes, were all very well; but I've known clever parties come round,
and those I've named would hardly step out to look; and my heart, I
suppose it was, if it wasn't my mind, got very sore about that time, and
I used to get looking as evil at Harry Lant as Lieutenant Leigh did at
the captain.

But it was a dreary time that, after all, one from which we were
awakened in a sudden way, that startled us to a man.

First of all, there came a sort of shadowy rumour that something was
wrong with the men of a native regiment, something to do with their
caste; and before we had well realised that it was likely to be anything
serious, sharp and swift came one bit of news after another, that the
British officers in the native regiments had been shot down--here,
there, in all directions; and then we understood that what we had taken
for the flash of a solitary fire, was the firing of a big train, and
that there was a great mutiny in the land. And not, mind, the mutiny or
riot of a mob of roughs, but of men drilled and disciplined by British
officers, with leaders of their own caste, all well armed and provided
with ammunition; and the talk round our mess when we heard all this was,
How will it end?

I don't think there were many who did not realise the fact that
something awful was coming to pass. Measles grinned, he did, and said
that there was going to be an end of British tyranny in India, and that
the natives were only going to seize their own again; but the next
minute, although it was quite clean, he takes his piece out of the rack,
cleans it thoroughly all over again, fixes the bayonet, feels the point,
and then stands at the "present!"

"I think we can let 'em know what's what though, my lads, if they come
here," he says, with a grim smile; when Mrs Bantem, whose breath seemed
quite taken away before by the way he talked, jumped up quite
happy-like, laid her great hand upon his left side, and then, turning to
us, she says: "It's beating strong."

"What is?" says Bantem, looking puzzled.

"Measles' heart," says Mrs Bantem: "and I always knew it was in