For some nights there had been no attempt at a surprise, and the trenches had been advanced to a point at which it was intended to erect a new battery to assail the portion of the city walls best adapted for breaching. The construction of this battery was being busily pushed forward in the dark, by the help of shaded lights, when the working-party were fiercely assailed by a horde of the enemy, mounted and on foot, who had poured silently through the gate nearest to the threatened point, and almost reached the works before their presence was detected. The whole of the British force stood to its arms, but salutary experience had taught the leaders that sorties seldom came singly, and only the troops nearest the point of attack were moved to repulse it. On the further side of the city Gerrard had a hard task to restrain the eagerness of his men, who could not see why they should be kept out of the fight, and avenged themselves by detecting endless imaginary sorties against their own position. It was a night of peculiar blackness, and General Desdichado, who had been drawn from his seclusion by the alarm, evidently found it trying to his nerves. His agitation culminated at last in a wild charge into the darkness, followed by as many of the Habshiabadis as could find their horses, yelling and discharging their muskets into the night. Gerrard, hoarse with his vain exertions, half amused and half disgusted, was left with Rukn-ud-din and the Rajput Amrodh Chand and their men to defend the camp. He turned to make an ironical remark to the former, but found him standing like a statue, listening intently. "Sahib, there come men from the city. As they crossed the bridge, I heard their horses' feet on the planks." "Let us go forward a short distance," said Gerrard, and they went out into the gloom, the tumult of the Habshiabadis' charge on the left growing faint in their ears. They could hear nothing of the advance Rukn-ud-din thought he had detected, and Gerrard, concluding that the man's ears had deceived him, was about to suggest returning to the camp, when a distant flash of lightning, such as had been playing on the horizon during the earlier part of the evening, lit up the landscape, and showed a company of horsemen riding cautiously away from the city. Their aim was evidently to pass between the camp of the Habshiabadis and that of the next besieging unit, and they had almost accomplished their purpose when they were seen.