"Lead on! Fall in behind me, men! Walk quietly, now, and remember.
Hold your tongues! Each man keep his eye on me, and a finger on
the trigger!"
The Beluchi and the fakir and Juggut Khan moved in the van, with
two men to hold the fakir. Next marched, or rather tiptoed, Sergeant
Brown, followed by the other men in single file. In that order they
hastened after Juggut Khan, through the darkness, across a dried-out
moat and round the corner of a huge stone buttress. There they
disappeared inside the wall, and a stone swung round and closed the
gap behind the last of them. There was no alarm given, and not a
sign or a sound of any kind to betoken that any one had seen them.
Inside the walls the city roared like a flood-fed maelstrom, and
outside all was darkness and the silence of the dead.
XIII.
There was some smart work done inside the powder-magazine. To be
able to appreciate it properly one would be obliged to do what they
did--wander through a maze of tunnels in a city-wall, blinded by
darkness, oppressed by the stored-up stuffiness and heat of ages and
deafened by the stillness--then emerge unexpectedly in the lamp-lit
magazine, among mutineers who sprawled, and laughed; and chewed
betel-nut at their ease upon the powder-kegs.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139