Quick as thought, before rebels or onlookers could realize what was taking place, the muzzles of the guns were turned slightly to the right and lowered, and ere the assemblage had time to wonder, a shower of grape was belched forth into the clustered ranks of the faithless Sikhs of the 138th. At the very same instant, before sepoys or besieged were able to take in what had happened, the hundred men of the Guides--or as many of them as were not helping their gunner comrades--brought their rifles (for theirs were still loaded) to the shoulder, and blazed away into the helpless mass of brown humanity. The rebels fell in scores, mown down by the heavy discharge. One or two of the native officers attempted to rally them, but the cannon, well and promptly served by the Guides, cut lanes through the mob; and the well-aimed, disciplined volley-firing of the Pathans and Gurkhas augmented the confusion.
For some seconds open-mouthed wonder kept all our friends silent. The whole world seemed topsy-turvy.
"Oh, splendid!... Well played, Guides, well played!" shouted Leigh; and the garrison screamed and danced in a delirium of enthusiasm as their senses came back to them, and they understood.
"What is it? What does it mean?" demanded Ethel breathlessly and the sick from the hospital-room echoed the cry.
"It's the Guides!" was shouted back. "The Guides have been shamming mutiny. They've got possession of the guns, and have turned them on the traitors!"
Thrice did the mutineers attempt a rally, but the Sikhs--the staunchest of the rebels--had been almost blown away by the discharge of grape, and the poorbeahs dared not face that terrible fire--those spurts of flame that blazed forth, section by section, without hurry and without confusion, from the steady, levelled rifles.
In the Commissioner's house the Pathan messenger howled and shrieked in his excitement, then, snatching up rifle and sword, he darted from the sheltering walls and cut his way through the terrified rebels to the side of his comrades.
"Look!" cried Lieutenant Leigh. "Bahram Khan has given aver the command--to a private soldier, too!"
He pointed towards a dark-visaged man, of middle height and sturdy build, in the uniform of a sepoy of the Guide Corps, who was now directing the sectional volley-firing. At the same moment the mutineers broke away in all directions--two thousand men cowed by six score!