A DESPERATE DEFENSE.


"Well, major, what do you think of the situation?" one of the senior
captains asked, after the pipes had begun to draw.

"It looks rather bad, Crawshay. There's no disguising the fact. We shall
have the country up in force; they will swarm out like wasps from every
village, and by to-morrow night we shall have, at the very least, ten
thousand of them round us. Against a moderate force we could defend the
village; but it is a good-sized place, and we have only twenty-five men
for each wall, and a couple of hundred would be none too little."

"But surely, major, we might prevent their scaling the walls. It is not
likely that they would attack on all sides at once, and without artillery
they could do little."

"They will have artillery," said Captain Wilkins, an officer, who had
served for some time in Oude. "These talookdars have all got artillery.
They were ordered to give it up, and a good many old guns were sent in;
but there is not one of these fellows who cannot bring a battery at the
very least into the field. By to-morrow night, or at the latest next day,
we may have some thirty or forty pieces of artillery round this place."

"It will not do to be caught like rats in a trap here," Major Warrener
said. "For to-night it is a shelter, after that it would be a trap. But
about Bithri; I don't like to give up the idea of rescuing our country-
people there. Still, although the matter has been left to my discretion, I
cannot risk losing the whole squadron."