Adventure stories; Short stories, English -- Scottish authors; Soldiers -- Fiction
We fought our way desperately. 'Remember the ladies--remember the
babies!' were our cries. Near the alligator tank lay the bodies of a
European man and woman. They were those of Lieutenant Macgregor and
Mrs. Heron, before whom he had thrown himself twice, as she was cut
down by the tulwar of Buktawur Sing, and the blood was yet flowing
from her wound when we found her. As for the poor officer, he was
found, as the General reported, 'with a hole through the neck, both
arms broken, and his body perforated by upwards of thirty wounds.'
I was an old soldier even then. I had been in many battles, and seen
much of death and suffering, but I felt a choking in my throat as I
saw Basil Heron, kneeling, sword in hand, by the side of his wife for
a moment, ere he rushed away, intent on revenge.
Hemmed in a corner, amid a heap of dead and dying, he ere long found
Buktawur Sing, and, though I did not see it, close and terrible was
the combat that ensued between them.
'At last! at last I have him! God, I thank Thee!' he exclaimed, with
a fervour that mingled with just indignation; and he ordered Drayton
to stand back, and the soldiers, who were ready to shoot the reptile
down, to leave him to his own fate. Buktawur was armed with a
ponderous tulwar, edged like a razor; and Heron, fortunately for
himself, had not one of our regulation tailors' swords, but a
straight good-cutting blade that his father had used in Central
India. His teeth were set; he panted rather than breathed; his check
was pale--his eyes were blazing, and sparks of fire flew from their
swords at every stroke. But fate was against Buktawur Sing, he
received in his body a succession of cuts and thrusts that brought
him, with blood flowing from every vein, upon his knees, and when his
turban fell off, by one trenchant slash Basil Heron clove him from
the brain to the chin, and with his foot fiercely he spurned the
corpse as it sunk before him.
* * * * * *
'Where is she?' he gasped hoarsely of me and others, as he staggered
back to the side of the alligator tank, and found that his wife had
disappeared.
'Inside the fort. Calm yourself. We have laid her on a charpoy,
poor girl!' said Drayton.
'My poor Rose! my poor Rose!' moaned Heron, as he covered his face,
and the hot tears streamed through his fingers. Through a place
where 150 of the 52nd alone were lying dead, he was led into a
darkened room, where, after the roar of the storm and capture, all
seemed dreadfully still. On a charpoy, or native bed, lay Rose
Heron, and Sheikh Abdul Ali, a native doctor, was bathing and binding
up the wound; and, nerving himself for what he had to look upon, her
husband drew near, and with trembling hands drew back the
mosquito-curtains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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