I was selected
to take charge during certain hours of the night of a small
isolated door upon the southwest side of the building. Two Sikh
troopers were placed under my command, and I was instructed if
anything went wrong to fire my musket, when I might rely upon
help coming at once from the central guard. As the guard was a
good two hundred paces away, however, and as the space between
was cut up into a labyrinth of passages and corridors, I had
great doubts as to whether they could arrive in time to be of any
use in case of an actual attack.
"Well, I was pretty proud at having this small command given me,
since I was a raw recruit, and a game-legged one at that. For
two nights I kept the watch with my Punjaubees. They were tall,
fierce-looking chaps, Mahomet Singh and Abdullah Khan by name,
both old fighting-men who had borne arms against us at Chilian-
wallah. They could talk English pretty well, but I could get
little out of them. They preferred to stand together and jabber
all night in their queer Sikh lingo. For myself, I used to stand
outside the gate-way, looking down on the broad, winding river
and on the twinkling lights of the great city. The beating of
drums, the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells and howls of the
rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were enough to remind us
all night of our dangerous neighbors across the stream.
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