CHAPTER III.

THE FLIGHT.


The young Warreners and their cousin, hurrying on, soon gained the thick
bush toward which they were directing their steps. As they cowered down in
its shelter the girls pulled their shawls over their heads, and with their
hands to their ears to keep out the noise of the awful din around them,
they awaited, in shuddering horror, their fate. The boys sat, revolver in
hand, determined to sell their lives dearly. Ned translated the jemadar's
speech, and at his order to search the compound both felt that all was
over, and, with a grasp of each other's hand, prepared to sally forth and
die. Then came Saba's act of noble self-sacrifice, and the boys had
difficulty in restraining themselves from rushing out to avenge her.

In the meantime the night was hideous with noises; musket shots, the sharp
cracks of revolvers, shouts, cries, and at times the long shrill screams
of women. It was too much to be borne, and feeling that for the present
Saba's act had saved them, the boys, laying down their weapons, pressed
their hands to their ears to keep out the din. There they sat for half an
hour, stunned by the awful calamity, too horror-stricken at what had
passed, and at the probable fate of their father, to find relief in tears.

At the end of that time the fire had burned itself out, and a few upright
posts still flickering with tongues of fire, and a heap of glowing embers
marked where the pretty bungalow, replete with every luxury and comfort,
had stood an hour before.