This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IN TIMES OF PERIL.
75

that you should, if possible, first fly. Here they found a pocket-handkerchief of Rose's; and going round to the other side found by the marks upon the soil that four of you had started together. With hearts immensely lightened by the discovery that you had, at any rate, all escaped from the first massacre, they hurried back to gladden me with the news. I was past understanding it when they arrived, for the intense pain in my head and my terrible anxiety about you had made me delirious. It would have been certain death to stay so near the road, so they dipped their handkerchiefs in water and tied them round my head, and then supporting me, one on each side, they half-dragged half-carried me to a deserted and half ruinous cottage about a mile away.

"Next day I was still feverish, but fortunately no one came near us. Dunlop and Manners went out at night and got a few bananas. Next morning our regiment marched away, and Dunlop then appealed to an old cottager for shelter and food for us all. He at once promised to aid us and I was removed to his cottage, where everything in his power was done for me. I was now convalescent, and a day later we were talking of making a move forward. That night, however, the cottage was surrounded whether the peasant himself or some one else betrayed us we shall never know—but the men that we saw there belonged to a regiment of mutineers that had marched in that afternoon from Dollah. We saw at once that resistance was useless, and we were, moreover, without arms. Had we had them, I have no doubt we should have fought and been killed. As it was, we were bound and marched into the camp at Sandynugghur. It was resolved to take us in triumph into Delhi, and we were marched along with the regiment till you saw us. We had talked over every conceivable plan of escape, and