If all that did not freeze the marrow in the bones of a lot of sleepy Pandies, I flattered myself nothing would!
So we moved off over the fields--the soft earth muffling all sound--my improvised infantry keeping a really wonderful line--and all as eager as panthers.
In an hour or so the guide whispered to me that we were close on our quarry, but nothing was to be seen. The night, though not pitch-dark, was sufficiently so to obscure all objects beyond thirty or forty yards. Most fortunately a belt of trees was now behind us, which must have effectually prevented us from being seen from our front. Suddenly I became aware of the _silhouette_ of a man's figure against the sky of the horizon before me, slowly moving, apparently along the top of a low wall. Almost at the same instant from the dim figure came a loud challenge:--"Hookumdar!" He must have been startled by some sound, for he could not have seen us.
I held my breath, for I feared that my villagers might get excited, and spoil my plans by beginning to fire; but they behaved admirably and crept steadily on. Now we were within forty yards of the sentry. "Hookumdar!" he shouted again. For a few yards more we crouched forward, when the sentry, now thoroughly alarmed, once more roared "Hookumdar," and fired his musket. Now was the moment! I gave the signal "Hurrah" as loud as my lungs would let me, and galloped off to my squad of sowars, while the line of villagers simultaneously let off all their fire-arms, and burst into an uproar of wild yells to which the worst efforts of a pack of mad jackals would have been a feeble joke.
A few seconds covered the ground between us and the rebel bivouac, and brought us up to a shallow ditch and a low wall, which, though they brought down one or two of our horses, did not for a moment check the furious charge. So complete was the surprise and so utterly unprepared for, that beyond a few scattered musket shots fired off harmlessly in panic, not the very slightest effort at a stand was made. The wretched Pandies as they jumped up, half dazed with sleep, from the ground and off the charpoys on which they had been lying, must have been utterly bewildered by the fiendish yells and the roar of musketry which for many of them was their last "reveille;" and they fled helter-skelter in all directions into the fields, pursued and mercilessly slain by the Sikh horsemen, whose scanty numbers their fears must have magnified a hundredfold. Some were actually sabred on the ground before they were well awake. Others were caught before they had got a dozen yards away; and in a few minutes the surrounding fields were covered with the bodies of many more; while the lucky survivors, favoured by the darkness, made off at best speed to unknown and distant parts, and doubtless had a gruesome tale to unfold when at last they reached some safe asylum, as to how they had escaped by the favour of God and by the skin of their teeth, after performing prodigies of unavailing valour, from a midnight attack by the whole British army.