Page:In times of peril.djvu/168

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
156
IN TIMES OF PERIL.

once killed in the boats; some jumped into the water, and pushing the boats afloat, made for the opposite shore; while others leaped into the river on the deeper side and tried to escape by swimming. But upon the other shore were enemies as bloodthirsty as those they left behind, for there the Sepoys of the Seventeenth Native Regiment, who had mutinied at Azimghur, were posted, and these cut off the retreat of the fugitives there. Then all the boats, with the exception of two or three which had drifted down stream, followed by bands of Sepoys with cannon on either bank, were brought back to the starting place, which is known, and will be known through all time, as "the slaughter ghat." There all the men still alive were taken on shore and shot; while the women and children, many of them bleeding from wounds, were taken off to a house formerly belonging to the medical department of the European troops, called the Subada Khotee.

Dick and Ned Warrener were in one of the boats which were still ashore when the treacherous Sepoys burst from their hiding place. "The scoundrels!" burst from Ned indignantly; while Dick, seeing at a glance the hopelessness of their position, grasped his brother's arm.

"We must swim for it, Ned. Take a long dive and go under again the moment you have got breath."

Without an instant's delay the brothers leaped into the water, as dozens of others were doing, and although each time their heads came up for an instant the bullets splashed around them, they kept on untouched until they reached the center of the stream. They were still within musket range, but the distance was sufficient to render them pretty safe except against an accidental shot. They looked back and saw the Sepoys had many of them entered the river up to their shoulders to shoot the