“I’d bet on it!  I’ll bet you what you like that—­”

But Bellairs did not hear the rest.

A bugle rang out into the night.  The gunners stood by their horses.  Even the sentries, posted outside the rampart to guard against alarm, stood to attention, and Colonel Carter, wincing from the pain in his right arm, walked out in front of where the men were lined up.

Captain O’Rourke walked up and saluted him.

“I’ve arranged to bury them in that trench we dug this evening, sir, when the trouble started.  It’s not very deep, but it holds them all.  I’ve laid them in it.”

“Are you sure they’re all dead?”

“I’ve burnt their fingers with matches, sir.  I don’t know of any better way to make sure.”

“Very well.  Can you remember any of the burial service?”

“’Fraid not, sir.”

“Um!  That’s a pity.  And I’m afraid I can’t spare the time.  Take a firing-party, Captain O’Rourke, and give them the last honors, at all events.”

A party marched away toward the trench, and several minutes later O’Rourke’s voice was heard calling through the darkness, “All ready, sir!”

“Present arms!” ordered the colonel, and the gunners sat their horses with their hilts raised to their hips and the two long lines of infantry stood rigid at the general salute, while five volleys—­bulleted—­barked upward above the grave.  They were, answered by sniping from the mutineers, who imagined that reprisals had commenced.

“Now, men!” said Colonel Carter, raising his voice until every officer and man along the line could hear him, “as you must have realized, things are very serious indeed.  We are cut off from support, but now that the guns are here to help us, we could either hold out here until relieved or else fight our way into Jundhra, where I have no doubt we are very badly needed.  But”—­he spoke more slowly and distinctly now, with a distinct pause between each word—­“there is an officer’s lady alone, and practically unprotected at Hanadra.  Our duty is clear.  You are tired—­I know it.  You have had no supper, and will get none.  It means forced marching for the rest of this night and a good part of tomorrow and more fighting, possibly on an empty stomach; it means the dust and the heat and the discomfort of the trunk road for all of us and danger of the worst kind instead of safety—­for we shall have farther to go to reach Jundhra.  But I would do the same, and you men all know it, for any soldier’s wife in my command, or any English woman in India.  We will march now on Hanadra.  No!  No demonstrations, please!”

His uplifted left hand was just in time to check a roar of answering approval.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” exclaimed a gunner to the man beside him in an undertone.  “Him leave a white woman to face this sort o’ music?  He’d fight all India first!”

Ten minutes later two companies of men marched out behind the guns, followed by a cart that bore their wounded.  As they reached the trunk road they were saluted by a reverberating blast when the magazine that they had fought to hold blew skyward.  They turned to cheer the explosion and then settled down to march in deadly earnest and, if need be, to fight a rear-guard action all the way.