Maybe they forgot your
wife--maybe they didn't. It's a devil of a business anyhow!"
It was difficult to talk at the speed that they were making, with
their own horses breathing heavily, O'Rourke's especially; the guns
thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front,
and their attention distracted every other minute by the noise of
volleys on ahead and the occasional staccato rattle of independent
firing. The whole sky was now alight with the reflection of the burning
barracks and they could see the ragged outlines of the cracking walls
silhouetted against the blazing red within. One mile or less from
the burning buildings they could see, too, the occasional flash of
rifles where the two companies of the Thirty-third, Honorable East
India Company's Light Infantry, held out against the mutineers.
"Why did they mutiny?" asked Bellairs.
"God knows! Nobody knows! Nobody knows anything! I'm thinking--"
"Thinking what?"
"Forrester-Carter is commanding. We'll settle this business pretty
quickly, now you've come.
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