"For three days I had a baddish time.We steered by the stars, travelling chiefly by night, and we showed extraordinary skill in missing the water-holes.I had a touch of fever and got light-headed, and it was all I could do to struggle through the thick grass and wait-a-bit thorns.My clothes were torn to rags, and I grew so footsore that it was agony to move.All the same we travelled fast, and there was no chance of our missing the road, for any route due north was bound to cut the railway.Ihad the most sickening uncertainty about what was to come next.
Hely, who was in command at Deira, was a good enough man, but he had only three companies of white troops, and the black troops were as likely as not to be on their way to the rebels.It looked as if we should have a Cawnpore business on a small scale, though I thanked Heaven there were no women in the case.As for Tommy, he would probably be repeating platitudes in Deira and composing an intelligent despatch on the whole subject.
"About four in the afternoon of the third day I struck the line near a little station called Palala.I saw by the look of the rails that trains were still running, and my hopes revived.At Palala there was a coolie stationmaster, who gave me a drink and a little food, after which I slept heavily in his office till wakened by the arrival of an up train.It contained one of the white companies and a man Davidson, of the 101st, who was Hely's second in command.From him I had news that took away my breath.
The Governor had gone up the line two days before with an A.D.C.
and old Mackay.'The sportsman has got a move on him at last,'
said Davidson, 'but what he means to do Heaven only knows.The Labonga are at the mines, and a kind of mine-guard has been formed for defence.The joke of it is that most of the magnates are treed up there, for the railway is cut and they can't get away.I don't envy your chief the job of schooling that nervous crowd.'
"I went on with Davidson, and very early next morning we came to a broken culvert and had to stop.There we stuck for three hours till the down train arrived, and with it Hely.He was for ordinary a stolid soul, but I never saw a man in such a fever of excitement.He gripped me by the arm and fairly shook me.'That old man of yours is a hero,' he cried.'The Lord forgive me!
and I have always crabbed him.'
"I implored him in Heaven's name to tell me what was up, but he would say nothing till he had had his pow-pow with Davidson.It seemed that he was bringing all his white troops up the line for some great demonstration that Tommy had conceived.Davidson went back to Deira, while we mended the culvert and got the men transferred to the other train.Then I screwed the truth out of Hely.Tommy had got up to the mines before the rebels arrived, and had found as fine a chaos as can be imagined.He did not seem to have had any doubts what to do.There was a certain number of white workmen, hard fellows from Cornwall mostly, with a few Australians, and these he got together with Mackay's help and organised into a pretty useful corps.He set them to guard the offices, and gave them strict orders to shoot at sight any one attempting to leave.Then he collected the bosses and talked to them like a father.What he said Hely did not know, except that he had damned their eyes pretty heartily, and told them what a set of swine they were, making trouble which they had not the pluck to face.Whether from Mackay, or from his own intelligence, or from a memory of my neglected warnings, he seemed to have got a tight grip on the facts at last.Meanwhile, the Labonga were at the doors, chanting their battle-songs half a mile away, and shots were heard from the far pickets.If they had tried to rush the place then, all would have been over, but, luckily, that was never their way of fighting.They sat down in camp to make their sacrifices and consult their witch-doctors, and presently Hely arrived with the first troops, having come in on the northern flank when he found the line cut.He had been in time to hear the tail-end of Tommy's final address to the mineowners.He told them, in words which Hely said he could never have imagined coming from his lips, that they would be well served if the Labonga cleaned the whole place out.Only, he said, that would be against the will of Britain, and it was his business, as a loyal servant, to prevent it.Then, after giving Hely his instructions, he had put on his uniform, gold lace and all, and every scrap of bunting he possessed--all the orders and 'Golden Stars' of half a dozen Oriental States where he had served.He made Ashurst, the A.D.C., put on his best Hussar's kit, and Mackay rigged himself out in a frock-coat and a topper;and the three set out on horseback for the Labonga.'I believe he'll bring it off, said Hely, with wild eyes,n'and, by Heaven, if he does, it'll be the best thing since John Nicholson!'
"For the rest of the way I sat hugging myself with excitement.
The miracle of miracles seemed to have come.The old, slack, incompetent soul in Tommy seemed to have been driven out by that other spirit, which had hitherto been content to dream of crazy victories on the Oxus.I cursed my folly in having missed it all, for I would have given my right hand to be with him among the Labonga.I envied that young fool Ashurst his luck in being present at that queer transformation scene.I had not a doubt that Tommy would bring it off all right.The kings from Orion don't go into action without coming out on top.As we got near the mines I kept my ears open for the sound of shots; but all was still,--not even the kind of hubbub a native force makes when it is on the move.Something had happened, but what it was no man could guess.When we got to where the line was up, we made very good time over the five miles to the mines.No one interfered with us, and the nearer we got the greater grew my certainty.
