“Turn out all the servants and coolies, Winlock,” he said, “and shore up the wall with props and sand-bags as far as possible. We will stay here and watch whether the water rises any higher. It’s clear they hope that this south curtain will go,” he added to Mr Burgrave, “and that then they will only have to walk in.” “They must have a clever head among them,” said the Commissioner; “for they are evidently letting the water out a little at a time.” “Ah, that’s the native engineer, no doubt. They would keep him alive to manage the machinery for them when they murdered poor Western. Look out, here’s another!” Again the wall trembled perceptibly, but by this time the courtyard was full of eager workers, piling up earth and stones and beams and bags of sand, and anything else that could be found. Presently the Colonel called out to them to stop, for there was now the danger that the wall might fall outwards instead of inwards, and they waited in unwilling idleness, while the two men on the rampart watched the current anxiously, and measured the distance of its surface from the parapet. Then came a more violent rush of water than any before, and to Colonel Graham and Mr Burgrave the wall seemed to rock backwards and forwards under them. When they looked into each other’s faces once more, they could scarcely believe that it was still standing. “That’s the last, evidently,” said the Colonel, “a final effort. The water’s getting lower already. We’re safe for to-night, but if they had only had the patience to wait till this rain was over, we could never have stood the force of water they could have turned on. And as it is, a child’s popgun might almost account for this bit of wall now.” CHAPTER XV. “THE OLD FIRST HEROIC LESSONS.” “Why, Mrs North!” Disturbed in his task of supervising the proceedings of a nervous native assistant, whose mind was less occupied with his dispensing than with the bullets which flattened themselves occasionally upon the pavement outside the surgery, Dr Tighe had turned suddenly to find Georgia at his elbow. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked kindly, looking with professional disapproval at her pale face and weary eyes. “I want you to let me help you in the hospital.” “And I thought you were a sensible woman! Will you tell me if you call this wise, now?” “I think it would help me to have something to do.” “But not this. What am I to say to the Major when--if--when I see him again, if you overtask your strength?” “I see you think I am mad,” she said earnestly, “but I _know_ he is alive. But the suspense is so dreadful, doctor. It’s certain that he is wounded, and I can scarcely doubt he is a prisoner; and what may be happening to him at any moment? It is killing me, and I must live--for both their sakes.” The doctor nodded quickly. “And I thought if I could do something to help those who were suffering as he is, it might--oh, I don’t know--it might make me tired enough to sleep again.”