"That is a curious thing about General Baker," said the colonel to Major Elmfoot. "Yes, indeed, it is." "Was he hit, sir?" asked Dudley. "I heard something of it." "Yes, by a splinter of a shell in the face, just as we came under fire." "But I saw him after that." "Oh, yes; he got the wound dressed, and remounted, knowing how useful he could be, knowing the ground. But it is a nasty wound for all that, MacBean says. The strange thing is that he should have passed unscathed through the hordes a month ago, when his troops fled and left him unprotected, and the chances against him looked a hundred to one, and get hit to-day; the odds were a hundred to one the other way." "The most curious case of that sort was Sir Charles Napier," said the major. "He was one of the most unlucky men that ever lived in the way of getting hit. In every great battle in which he took part during the Peninsular War he was severely wounded. But at Meeanee and Dubba, where he was in command, and almost everything depended upon him, and where, too, he exposed himself in a manner which made the Sindhees think he had a charmed life, he did not get a scratch." "I wonder whether those Indian fellows fought as hard as these Arabs?" observed Green. "Not much difference, I should say," said the major. "They flung themselves on the bayonets, and, if not mortally wounded, seized the muzzles and pressed them to their bodies with the left hand, to get one cut at their enemy and die. I don't quite see how _that_ could be beaten in the way of game fighting, though these fellows equal it. I saw one do much the same thing to-day." "And did Sir Charles Napier fight them in square, sir?" asked Green, who was of an inquiring mind on professional subjects. "No, he met them in line, and his men had no breech-loaders in those days; not even percussion caps; only the old brown bess with a flint and steel lock, and a good bayonet on the end of her." "But perhaps the odds were not so great." "Quite, by all accounts. It is true that the Indians fought with swords and shields, and, after firing their matchlocks, charged home with those weapons. A swordsman requires space for the swing of his arm, so, however more numerous they may be, they must fight in looser order than soldiers armed with the bayonet, and therefore, at the actual point of meeting, each individual swordsman finds at least two antagonists opposed to him in the front rank alone. Now these Arabs, fighting principally with spears, can very often come in a much denser mass. I only give that idea for what it is worth. I think it may make a good deal of difference. The nature of the ground, also, would alter the condition of the contest. But, at any rate, I do not quite see how we should be safe against getting taken in the rear in any other than the square formation." CHAPTER SIXTEEN. TOUCH AND GO!