The doctor, meanwhile, had cried to the other men to post themselves at the back windows, the shutters of which also were loopholed, and they too fired among the throng now crowding into the garden from three sides. There were not wanting men of courage among the assailants, and several of them rushed up to the windows with the idea of firing through the loopholes, which were plainly to be seen, if only by the smoke filtering through them; but the inside of the house being higher than the outside, they were unable to reach high enough to get an aim. All they could do was to fire at the shutters, and a scattered volley of bullets thudded upon them. For the most part they embedded themselves in the woodwork. One or two actually penetrated the loopholes, but being fired from below, they failed to hit the men behind, who had retired slightly from the windows to reload. The doctor shouted to the men to fire alternately, one reloading while the other fired. The mutineers crowding into the garden found themselves exposed to a deadly dropping of bullets of which they themselves could see the fatal results, while they were ignorant of what damage their own fire was doing. There was no cover in the garden except the fountain. Every part of it was commanded from the door or one or other of the windows; the fountain would at best shelter only one or two. They found that every bullet fired by the garrison meant the loss of one of their number. There were several rushes and attempts to batter in the door with the stocks of muskets, or to push the muzzles up through the loopholes, but these always met with the same fate as the first, although one Sikh was badly hit by a splinter. While the men still kept up their fire, Ahmed rushed through to the front, whence he again heard the din of conflict. There had been another rush up the ladders, met by a fusillade and a charge by the garrison under the British corporal. Again the enemy had been hurled back. Ahmed arrived on the scene just in time to see the last man disappearing from the wall, transfixed by the corporal's bayonet. Again there was silence both at the back and in front of the house. At the back the crowd of mutineers in the garden had been suddenly seized with panic, their comrades dropping one by one beneath the fire of the garrison without being able to do anything effectual in reply. They had swarmed back over the colonnade, and regained the lane behind or the gardens of the adjacent houses. Ahmed seized the interval of quiet to hurry up to the doctor, whom he found somewhat shaken by his injury, but perfectly calm. He was, indeed, on the point of descending, to take more direct and effectual command than was possible from the room above. "I have had a knock," he said, with a smile, "but I think I can manage to crawl down."