"I have heard much of thy father, Russell Sahib, who was my father's brother. I am glad to fight side by side with thee as our fathers fought."

Ted pressed the young jemadar's hand. This was, then, the grandson of the famous Nepalese general, Amir Sing Thapa, who had kept our troops at bay for so long a period in the year of Waterloo. Ted had often heard the story, and was glad indeed to meet the hero's grandson.

That night the troops slept soundly both on and below the Ridge. In the early morning the Gurkha picket heard the sound of cheering from the British camp, and the report ran round that the Guide Corps was marching in. Ted, Paterson, and their four Pathans--two had fallen on the previous day--went down to rejoin their regiment, which was being greeted with the same enthusiasm that had been accorded to the Sirmuris a few days before.

Though the Guides had taken no part in the battle they had already covered themselves with undying glory. Daly had promised that the seven hundred and fifty miles should be covered in a month, and he had done it in twenty-eight days. The stately height and military bearing of the frontiersmen and the perfect horsemanship of the cavalry took everyone by surprise, and such exclamations as "A splendid lot!" "Fighters every inch of them!" were heard on all sides. Though they had accomplished the magnificent march--a march that still holds the record--during the hottest season of the year, they came in, as an onlooker remarked, "as firm and light of step as if they had marched only a mile".

The Guides had barely arrived before they contrived to give the Delhi rebels a taste of their temper. Large bodies of horse and foot had been sent out from the city to harass our advanced posts, and, full of a fierce joy, the Guides were ordered to the front.

Charlie was engaged in chaffing his cousin, Ted throwing in a word here and there, when Lieutenant Quintin Battye strolled up, a smile on his handsome face. He nodded towards the two ensigns.

"I've a bone to pick with you two," he gaily remarked. "What do you mean by risking the lives of my best troopers by charging a regiment with half a dozen men? Throw your own lives away if you like, but remember that our sowars are of value to the state."

Ted had a joke on the tip of his tongue before the slower Paterson had framed any suitable reply, when the order came for the Guides Cavalry to advance.

Battye rose in his stirrups, and, thundering forth the order to charge, dashed straight for the ranks of the mutinous 3rd Native Cavalry. The sabres of the loyal and disloyal crossed, and down went man and horse before that furious onslaught. Through the second ranks of the rebels crashed those Pathan and Sikh troopers, their steel flashing in the sunlight as the sabres rose and fell again, now tinged with red, in the fierce conflict. Ever in the forefront rode Quintin Battye. Captain Daly, with the infantry, looked on in admiration at his subaltern's charge and could not contain himself.

"Gallant Battye! Well done, brave Battye!" he cried in his enthusiasm.

At that very moment a rebel turned round, and, riding straight for the English subaltern, discharged his piece into Battye's body from a distance of twenty yards. The deed was avenged! Subadar Merban Sing, captain of the Gurkha company of the Guides, had dashed forward and cut down the sepoy as he fired, but too late to save that precious life.

Battye was carried off the field, wounded mortally; and as he lay dying in terrible pain, he turned to the chaplain who attended him, and smiling said: "_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!_"

Thus died a gallant officer and true gentleman. Since that date there has hardly been a campaign in which the Guides have not been officered by a Battye.

The Guides Infantry were now allotted a position on the Ridge, under the orders of Major Reid, who had been placed in command of the advanced posts. Two companies of the 60th Rifles also took up their quarters in Hindu Rao's house, for it soon became evident that the Sirmur Battalion would have to bear the brunt of all attacks.

But the little Himalayans did not grumble at that.

On the very first opportunity that presented itself, our three friends foregathered to talk over the events of the past few years. The two seniors placidly smoked their pipes and congratulated themselves on belonging to regiments that had proved their loyalty.

Jim was forced to submit, with as much good-temper and cheerfulness as could have been expected under the circumstances, to his cousin's quizzing enquiries and humorous comments in the matter of his love affair and engagement. Charlie simply wanted to know everything, and, with as good a grace as possible for a shy young man, Jim laughingly endeavoured to parry the embarrassing questions.

"Well, tell me what she's like, man, can't you? Teddy here can't say anything concerning her appearance, except that he's head over heels in love with her himself.---- And I'm sure that's no recommendation for any girl!" Captain Dorricot added, as an afterthought.

Ted hereupon indulged in an exclamation and gesture expressive of dissent, and of the supreme contempt in which he held his cousin.

"What's that, Ted? You never said anything of the sort? Why, you young bargee, of course you did!" went on the tormentor. "You talked of poisoning Jim's grub, and what not.---- Well, Captain Russell, once more: Are her eyes black, blue, brown, purple, violet, green, yellow, red, or a mixture, or perchance, is she an albino?"

"Oh, I dunno! Something between green and blue, as you seem so anxious to know."

"Peacock-blue, shall we say? That's a pity! Violet is the favourite hue with lady novelists--either violet, or purple, or heliotrope. Did you ever see a woman with eyes of heliotrope hue, young 'un?"

"No, nor don't want to."

"That's very decided. Now then, Jim, cut along! Eyes, peacock-blue; nose, Roman, Grecian, snub, or what? Grecian? Right. Jot it down. Size?

Ted says she's a dwarf. What? Ted a liar? Surely the boy has not been deceiving me who trusted in him?"

"I never said anything of the kind!" interrupted Ted indignantly. "Don't believe a word he says, Jim."

"Oh, Teddy, Teddy, this to your loving cousin? Now, you know that you said she was smaller than you!" Charlie asserted with a show of indignant surprise at the ensign's perfidy.

"Well, we're getting at it slowly," Dorricot continued. "Nose Grecian; peacock-blue eyes; size five feet nothing; hair brown; rides well; shoots mullahs in the _bazar_ for sport, failing partridges; loads rifles with considerable ease--for a woman; sings divinely--isn't that the expression?--"

"Hold on, old man, that's the whole catalogue!" interrupted Jim. "You'll see her some day, I hope. Now what about this present business?"

Captain Russell then proceeded to give an account of their great march, and Dorricot told of the temptations placed before his men.

"As we halted one day on the march down to Meerut," he informed the brothers, "a number of sappers who were on the point of mutiny approached our lads and began to talk earnestly to them. We pretended to take no notice, but when the sappers had left, Reid called a couple of the Gurkhas to him. The little men trotted up, quivering with anger and indignation.

"'Well, what did those fellows want, my lads?' he enquired.

"'They asked us if we were going up to Meerut to eat the _ottah_ (flour) sent up specially by government for the Gurkhas,' one of them replied.

'And they said that the _ottah_ at Meerut was nothing but ground bullock bones, and that we should be defiled.'

"'And what was your answer?' asked Reid.

"The little beggars drew themselves up proudly.

"'We said that we were going wherever we were ordered; that our regiment obeys the bugle-call!'"

"Good little men!" commented the captain of the Guides, as his cousin concluded. "Our own Gurkha company would be hard to beat. Look at Subadar Merban Sing! the man who tried to save poor Battye. His men simply adore him; they'd do anything for him, and go anywhere with him.

But aren't your 'almond-eyed Tartars' Hindus by religion? How did they take the greased-cartridge yarn?"

"They're Hindus, right enough, but they are soldiers first. They don't worship either Siva or Vishnu one-half so fervently as they adore their rifles and kukris. So they simply said that they would believe whatever Major Reid told them, and when he assured them that the cartridges and the cartridge-papers were free from offence, they replied, without a moment's hesitation:

"'Then serve them out to us! We'll use them, and everyone may see!'"

CHAPTER XVII

With the Gurkha Picket

On the morning of the 12th of June our friends on the Ridge were out soon after dawn, visiting their respective pickets and receiving reports. All was quiet. They gazed with admiration on the wonderful panorama, at the stately mosques, minarets, and towers of the royal city, at the huge mass of walls bulking in threatening manner before them, at the king's palace--a town in itself--that stood to the far side of the city, and at the blue waters of the Jumna glittering and sparkling in the sun, washing the opposite walls to those whose heavy guns had poured shot and shell at our men but a few hours ago. To the south of the Ridge lay the picturesque suburbs of the Kishengang and the Sabzi-mandi, with their magnificent buildings, walled gardens, and shady groves.

The peaceful scene was not of long duration. The guns of the Mori and Kashmir bastions presently belched forth a shower of shot and shell, and, under cover of the heavy fire, two large bodies of mutineers poured out to the attack, one charging the Gurkha picket, the other pushing its way through the gardens, sheltered by trees and walls. Those sepoy regiments attacking Hindu Rao's mansion saw only dark faces between them and their desire.

"Come over to us!" the Brahmans shouted to the Gurkhas. "Come over, and we'll reward you; you shall have treasure and honour. You are of our religion. Siva, the Destroyer, is fighting on our side. Join us in driving away the white men. Come!"

"Yes, we are coming! Wait for us!" shouted back the Nepalese. And they went, with bayonets fixed and kukris bared; but the rebels waited not.

Terrified by the determined faces and gleaming steel, they turned and fled, pursued for some distance by the fierce little mountaineers.

Thenceforward the Gurkhas were hated with a hatred as bitter as that accorded to the British.

"Those monkeys of Gurkhas are renegades to their faith!" declared the Brahman priests to those mutineers in Delhi who were of their persuasion. "They prefer to receive the Englishman's pay rather than follow the dictates of their holy men. Let them be outcasts! Spare them not! When we have destroyed the white men, then shall we deal with them, if any have escaped by that time!"

The attack made at the same time on the troops stationed below the Ridge met with no better success. The British soldiers down there were no less eager than their comrades up above to give the foemen a taste of their quality. After some hours' hard fighting, the rebels were repulsed with heavy loss, and our men began to feel happy, fondly imagining that the tide was already turning in their favour.