Still five hundred men hesitated. Some of the waverers shouted to the Englishmen, urging them to run. It was as though they had been bitten by a mad dog, and, while yet sane, knowing that the poison was working in their veins, they wished to save bloodshed before the madness should overpower them and render them pitiless. Almost broken-hearted by this proof that his trusted regiment had mutined, Colonel Woodburn lifted up his voice in a last appeal to their loyalty. Before he had spoken a dozen words, Pir Baksh--dreading lest the colonel's influence should wreck his plans, even when success seemed assured--stepped behind a crowd of gesticulating sepoys and took deliberate aim. Colonel Woodburn fell from his horse grievously wounded, and Ted and one of the subalterns dashed forward to convey him to a place of safety. Captain Markham placed himself at the head of his own hundred men and appealed to them, for the sake of all they had gone through together, to remain loyal and true. His company, composed of Hindustanis--mostly Rajputs--stood silent and puzzled, undecided how to act, when shots from some Mohammedans of the flank company answered his appeal, and the well-loved captain fell. There was no longer any indecision among Markham's Rajputs. Pity for the murdered officer who had done so much for them, anger that he should be shot by the Moslems whom they did not love, these feelings turned the scale. Hastily closing round their captain they guarded his body and menaced the mutineers. The remaining officers, seeing one faithful company, placed themselves at its head, and called on the other Hindus to remain loyal and fight the Mussulmans. But the madness had worked by now: all the rest cast in their lot with the murderers, and, firing a few shots at Englishmen and faithful sepoys, whom they dared not charge, so great was still the influence of the officers, they rushed off to loot the town and shops. Including Markham, three officers were killed and two badly wounded, two of the slain being brother ensigns of Ted--poor little "griffins", who had been out but a few months. Then swift as lightning came the thought, "What of the women and children and civilians?" The appearance of the revolted sepoys would be the signal for all the _budmashes_ of the _bazar_ to join in the rioting and murder. A noise of firing and a babel of fiendish yells from the English quarter of the town, in close proximity to the fort, told their own tale. The white residents were being attacked! "Lieutenant Lowthian," commanded the major, "remain here with Ensigns Tynan and Russell and about twenty men! We'll take our wounded with us, the women will attend to them; and when we've cleared the streets we'll bring the civilians into the fort." Exhorting the faithful Rajputs to remain true to their salt and so win eternal fame, the major ordered bayonets to be fixed, and headed the charge down the street, the wounded with their guard bringing up the rear.