Presently the men before the gate began to sneak off, and in five minutes more all was over, the Afridis suffering heavily as they retreated across the open. Then Nita went down into the courtyard. As she did so, she saw Carter run across the court to the other side, where the combat was still raging. She mounted the wall a short distance away. The enemy had each brought up a great faggot, and thrown it down against the foot of the wall, giving a slope almost to the top. Up this they had again and again rushed, only to be beaten back each time by the Punjaubis. Fortunately the faggots were insufficient to reach quite to the top of the wall, and the Afridis had to help their comrades up the eight feet between the crest and the top of the parapet, only to see them fall back shot or bayoneted. The arrival of ten men from the gate turned the tables. With thirty rifles playing upon them the Afridis felt that no more could be done, and retired sullenly, taking advantage of every bit of rising ground or bush to lie down and fire.
"Well, Miss Ackworth, that affair is over. I saw you standing at a distance, and was thankful that you did not come up to join us."
"I did my fighting on the other side," she said with a smile. "You know you said that – "
"You did!" he said angrily. "I shall have to put you under arrest, Miss Ackworth, for disobeying orders."
"Thank you! but it happens that I did not disobey orders. You particularly said that I might fire through the loopholes of the gate when it was seriously attacked, and I took advantage of the permission to get possession of two holes where the defenders had been killed, and I flatter myself I did some good. I fired thirty shots, and know enough of my shooting to be sure that there were not many of them thrown away. The circumstances were exactly what you pointed out. The gate was very seriously attacked, and it was therefore open to me to do a little shooting on my own account."
"It was really wrong of you, Miss Ackworth. The attack was serious, but I never thought for a moment that they would take the gate, and it certainly never entered my mind that you would expose yourself to being killed in this way."
"I took every precaution, Charlie, and fired sometimes from one loophole and sometimes from another; and as I must have accounted for quite twenty-five men, I honestly believe that I, at least, did as much as any of your soldiers, and probably a good deal more."
"That is all very well," he said; "I don't say that you did not do good service, and I admit that my orders did give you some sort of license; however, this must not occur again, or I shall consider it my duty to order you to keep your place in the hospital, and shall have to put a sentry at the door to prevent you from coming out under any pretence while fighting is going on. You must remember that I shall have to account for your safety to the major when he returns, and that were anything to happen to you the blame would fall upon my shoulders, and would not be put down to your wilfulness. However, should the time ever come when we are driven to our last corner, I shall then authorize you to use your pistol."
Glad to have got off so easily, Nita went down to the hospital. There were but few wounded, and these, as before, had been hit principally on the head and shoulder. Lieutenant Carter came in shortly afterwards: "Let me have a look at your patients, Miss Ackworth; I have gone through the St. John's ambulance course and am pretty good at bandaging. I see that you have taken great pains with the men, but I think that I can possibly make a little improvement here and there. Besides, in some cases, I may be able to get the balls out. It will be more than a week before the surgeon is back with your father, and extracting a bullet might make all the difference between life and death. I have brought in a case of instruments the doctor left behind him. Do you think that you could help me?"
"Certainly I could," she said; "I think my first attack of weakness will be my last."
"Well, then, let us set to work."
With two or three of the patients the ball had penetrated too deeply, but where it had lodged comparatively close to the surface, Carter managed to find its position with a probe, and in four cases he succeeded in getting it out. The patients behaved with heroic fortitude, and although the operation was necessarily painful, bore it without a murmur. When the work was done and the wounds bandaged again, he said: "Now, Nita, a little fresh air would do you good; come with me up to the ramparts. I am going to try the effects of an explosion. It is certain that the enemy are all gathered now in the mosque and village, and possibly after their defeat of this morning such a blow will disconcert them altogether, and send them to the right-about."
"I should think it would," Nita agreed. "What loss did they suffer this morning, do you think?"
"I should say at least a hundred and fifty of their bravest men."
They went together to the spot where the train of gunpowder ended. "You go on to the walls," he said, "and watch. I will run up as soon as I have lighted the fuse. We calculated that it would last five minutes before it fires the train of gunpowder."
Nita ran up to the wall and a minute later was joined by the officer. He took out his watch and counted the minutes as they went past. "Now, Miss Ackworth," he said, putting his watch into his pocket again, "the fuse ought to be done in forty seconds, but we must allow a minute or two for miscalculation in its length."
Two minutes passed, then there was a deep roar; the mosque came down like a house of cards, and many of the dwellings collapsed from the shock of the explosion. Timbers and stones flew up high into the air. There was a moment's pause, and then an outburst of wild yells and screams. "I think that ought to frighten them a bit," the lieutenant said; "unless their leader has great power over them, and is a man of iron nerves, they will be off. The worst of it is, they won't like to return home to face their women after the disasters that they have suffered, and without having obtained some great success. The men scarcely know what nerves mean, and they may very well make up their minds to try one last attempt. You may be sure it will be a formidable one if they do, and they will probably adopt some entirely new scheme. We shall have to be doubly cautious for the next two nights."
Although a sharp look-out was kept, there was no sign of the enemy retreating. Towards evening a scattered fire was opened from the village against the gate, but otherwise the night passed quietly.
"I don't like it," Carter said the next morning; "the enemy have not gone yet, and they have not renewed the attack. I have no doubt that the beggars are up to something. I wish I knew what it was. It worries me."
"It does seem strange," Nita said; "but perhaps they have been burying their dead, which would keep them pretty well occupied all day. However, as we have beaten them off twice with the loss to ourselves of only six killed and eight wounded, I suppose that we shall be able to resist them again."
"I am sure we shall if they attack us openly. It is only the unknown that I am afraid of. I was on the walls the whole night, but except for a continued random fire from the village they were quiet. I wish we had a moon. In that case we could make them out comfortably at a hundred yards, whereas on these dark nights one can't see twenty."
The officer's prevision of danger told upon Nita, and when she reached the bungalow that night she dressed herself in Carter's uniform, cut her hair carefully close to her head, and lay down in readiness to leap up at the first alarm.
Had anyone been keeping special watch in the courtyard, they would have seen a number of dark figures clustering between the wall and the hospital. During that and the preceding night a party of Afridis had gathered at the foot of the wall, crawling forward, one by one, on their stomachs. They were armed only with spear and knife, and with these had attacked the