"Your gunners have taken all my breath, sir. I can't speak!"
"You shouldn't take chances with a section of artillery! They're
not like infantry--they don't sleep all the time--you can't ride through
them as a rule!"
"Don't sleep, don't they! Then what have you been doing on the road?
And what are you standing here for? Ride, man, ride! You're wanted!"
"Get out of the way, then!" suggested Bellairs, and Captain O'Rourke
legged his panting charger over to the roadside.
"Advance-guard, forward, trot!" commanded the lieutenant.
"Have you brought your wife with you?" demanded O'Rourke, peering
into the jingling blackness.
"No. Of course not. Why?"
"`Of course not! Why?' says the man! Hell and hot porridge! Why,
the whole of India's ablaze from end to end--the sepoys have mutinied
to a man, and the rest have joined them! There's bloody murder doing--
they've shot their officers--Hammond's dead and Carstairs and Welfleet
and heaven knows who else. They've burned their barracks and the
stores and they're trying to seize the magazine.
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