"He must be asleep," she said, "or out of hearing; but it is curious that none of the others answer!" Dick went out into the veranda, but came in again in a minute or two: "There is no one there, Kate; and I don't hear any of them about anywhere." The four young people looked at each other. What did this mean? Had the servants left in a body? Did they know that something was going to happen? Such were the mute questions which their looks asked each other. "Girls!" said Ned, "put your dark shawls round you. It may be nothing, but it is better to be prepared. Get the bundles out. Dick, put a bottle of wine in your pocket; and let us all fill our pockets with biscuits." Silently and quietly the others did as he told them. "There is that great biscuit-tin full," Ned said when they had filled their pockets; "let us empty it into that cloth, and tie it up. Now, if you will put your shawls on I will look in at the stables." In a couple of minutes he returned. "The horses are all unharnessed," he said, "and not a soul is to be seen. Ah, is that Saba?" The old nurse had been found asleep in her favorite place outside the door of her young mistresses' room. "Do you know what is the matter, Saba? All the servants are gone!" The old nurse shook her head. "Bad news; no tell Saba." "Now, Saba, get ready to start," for the nurse had declared that she would accompany them, to go into the villages to buy food; "Dick, come with me; we will put one of the horses into the dogcart." They were leaving the room when they heard the sound of a rifle. As if it were the signal, in a moment the air rang with rifle shots, shouts, and yells. The boys leaped back into the room and caught up the bundles. "Quick, for your lives, girls! some of them are not fifty yards off! To the bushes! Come, Saba!" "Saba do more good here," the old nurse said, and seated herself quietly in the veranda. It was but twenty yards to the bushes they had marked as the place of concealment; and as they entered and crouched down there came the sound of hurrying feet, and a band of Sepoys, led by one of the jemadars, or native officers, rushed up to the veranda from the back. "Now," the jemadar shouted, "search the house; kill the boys, but keep the white women; they are too pretty to hurt." Two minutes' search--in which furniture was upset, curtains pulled down, and chests ransacked--and a shout of rage proclaimed that the house was empty. The jemadar shouted to his men: "Search the compound; they can't be far off; some of you run out to the plain; they can't have got a hundred yards away; besides, our guards out there will catch them." The old nurse rose to her feet just as the Sepoys were rushing out on the search. "It is of no use searching," she said; "they have been gone an hour." "Gone an hour!" shouted the enraged jemadar; "who told them of the attack?" "I told them," Saba said steadily; "Saba was true to her salt."