"They watched over them all night, and when morning came--ho! ho!--I made the madmen--surely the Prophet had smitten them all with madness--I made them, I say, empty all their firearms in the air, pretending that we must trust in the bayonet as soon as the cannon had done their work.
"'Aye,' said I, 'if your muskets are still loaded ye will lie down and fire as they escape. Ye must surround them with a ring of steel,' I said. So the madmen delivered themselves into my hands! Then I gave the order, and Sultan Jan of Kohat and Dayal Singh the Sikh cried out, and we let fly into their midst, first destroying the Sikhs, for they are true soldiers, though unbelieving dogs, and the others were but children. Yea, by the beard of the Prophet we destroyed them! Aye, we swept them away, mown down like the yellow corn in the Tirah before the strokes of the sickle.
"So they ran, and we followed; through the streets they ran screaming and throwing down their weapons, and we slew them by scores and by hundreds. But 'twas I, Bahram Khan, who saved Aurungpore. By the Prophet's beard, 'twas I!"
Loudly the Afghan horsemen applauded the strategy of the ressaidar. They laughed and shouted with glee as they listened, and greatly they regretted that they had not been present to participate therein.
Bahram Khan also told his countrymen how the boy-officer riding beside them--younger than any of their own officers, for the Guides required strong men to handle them--had blown up the magazine and miraculously escaped death; and the stern warriors looked approvingly at our hero, and one remarked in English, "Truly, we shall make a Guide of you, sahib!" Officers as well as men treated him as an equal, because of the experience he had gained, and the way in which he had looked death in the face.
For Captain Daly, Ted soon felt an ardent admiration. Said this gallant soldier to the lad on the day that the main body of the regiment was rejoined, "Well, youngster, do you know that you're taking part in what is going to be the best march in Indian history?"
"I'm glad I'm here, sir," replied Ted; and indeed he looked content.
"Yes," continued the commanding officer; "seven hundred and fifty miles is the distance from Murdan to Delhi, and I'll do it in thirty days. We shall probably be the only native regiment that can be trusted to take part in the siege."