“I hope so; but let us turn our attention to effecting an escape from this place. Why did you not try to secure a weapon, for you may have to defend your life?” “And yours,” he added quickly, for she never seemed to think of herself. Her words reminded him for the first time that he was totally unarmed, and carrying their lives in their hands as they did he knew that a weapon was indispensable. He reproached himself for having been so forgetful as not to have secured one before the garrison had marched out; but reproaches were useless; that he knew, and he thought it possible the error might yet be repaired. “Perhaps it is not yet too late to get one,” he said. “We will try,” she answered. “I will go and search amongst the defences; we may find something that will be of service.” “No, you must not go. Let that job be mine.” “We can both go,” she replied. “Four eyes are better than two, for one pair can watch for danger, while the other searches.” “Thoughtful again, Haidee. We will both go; but first let me reconnoitre, to see if the coast is clear.” Cramped and stiffened by the crouching posture he had been compelled to sustain, he crept from his hiding-place, so as to command a view of the ground. He could see nobody. He listened, but no sounds broke the stillness, excepting now and again the exultant yelling of the natives, as it was borne to his ears by a light breeze. The firing had ceased, for the deadly work at the Ghaut was completed, and the day was declining. “I think we may venture forth, Haidee,” he said, after having assured himself as far as possible that there was nobody in sight. They both went out from the place of concealment, and, while Haidee took up a position behind a large gun from which she could command an extensive view, and give timely warning of the approach of any of the enemy, Gordon commenced to search amongst the heaps of old rubbish that were scattered around. It was a melancholy task, for at every step there were ghastly evidences of the fearful nature of the struggle that had been carried on so heroically by the defenders. Here was a fragment of an exploded shell, there an officer’s epaulette; a portion of a sword blade red with blood, a baby’s shoe also ensanguined, a bent bayonet, a woman’s dress, colourless and ragged, and what was more ghastly and horrible still, there was the corpse of a little baby. It had died that morning; its mother had been dead some days. In its dead hands it still held a broken doll, and on its pretty dead face a smile still lingered. Gordon picked up the ragged dress, and reverently laid it over the little sleeper.