A little further up the road Dawson himself was lying on
his face, quite dead, with an empty revolver in his hand and four
Sepoys lying across each other in front of him. I reined up my
horse, wondering which way I should turn, but at that moment I
saw thick smoke curling up from Abelwhite's bungalow and the
flames beginning to burst through the roof. I knew then that I
could do my employer no good, but would only throw my own life
away if I meddled in the matter. From where I stood I could see
hundreds of the black fiends, with their red coats still on their
backs, dancing and howling round the burning house. Some of them
pointed at me, and a couple of bullets sang past my head; so I
broke away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late at
night safe within the walls at Agra.
"As it proved, however, there was no great safety there, either.
The whole country was up like a swarm of bees. Wherever the
English could collect in little bands they held just the ground
that their guns commanded. Everywhere else they were helpless
fugitives. It was a fight of the millions against the hundreds;
and the cruellest part of it was that these men that we fought
against, foot, horse, and gunners, were our own picked troops,
whom we had taught and trained, handling our own weapons, and
blowing our own bugle-calls.
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