Of the twenty-two Rajputs ten were still able to fight, and three others remained alive though sorely wounded. They were now all together, and Ted, Ambar Singh the havildar, and as many others as could crowd in, were lying full length before the wide-arched entrance to the room. From the slowly-yielding door the passage ran straight for a few paces before curving to the right, and an enemy coming round the bend would be at a great disadvantage, for the best marksmen of the garrison waited with ready muskets, their elbows on the threshold, their bodies within the room. Behind them two comrades stood, a loaded musket in each hand, to exchange for the emptied weapons, and beside them knelt Bisesar Rai and Dwarika Rai busily loading the firearms. The pandies could not take aim without coming into full view, but the defenders could fire with a minimum of exposure, and could draw back their heads into safety whenever they saw a musket-barrel pointing at random towards them. A louder crash, a shrill yell, and a mob of maddened sepoys swept inside and round the bend. Six muskets cracked at once, and the yells changed to howls of dismay. A second volley--not in unison this time, but no less effective--and the sepoys turned and fled. The victory was not to be so easy as they had imagined. Had the garrison been armed as were they, with one Brown Bess apiece and a limited supply of ammunition, it would all have been over long ago they told themselves, but when volley followed volley with such rapidity, it was like facing a regiment. The sepoys were not cowards as a rule, but they knew they were playing a traitor's part. In a good cause, well led, they would have risked the danger, even as the handful of loyal Rajputs were devoting their lives to their duty. A nerve-ruining silence, broken only by the moans of the wounded who lay on the floor, followed the shrill outcries. The rebels were baffled but not defeated. Slowly, painfully the minutes dragged, then two black heads showed round the bend, and two spurts of flame flashed out. Before the reports had reached them, Ted and Ambar Singh had pressed their fingers, and two sepoys fell forward on their faces. The defenders were untouched, the rebels having fired at random, and for a while none dared follow their example. In despair several of the raging mob pushed their musket-barrels round the bend and let fly, in the hope that an occasional bullet out of many might reduce the number of their dogged antagonists. But Ted drew his men back from the doorway until the sepoys were tired of this amusement.