The women, among whom were two girls yet on the borders of childhood, had had their clothes torn from their bodies, and they were now being hustled along under such constant ill-usage that they were bleeding from numerous wounds.
Unable further to curb the wrath that rose within him at the sight of this brutality, Heideck took his revolver from his belt, and with a well-aimed shot sent one of the howling, fanatic devils to the ground.
But his action was not well-advised.Although his martial appearance had up till then kept this cowardly crew away from acts of violence against himself and his party, the furious rage of the mob now knew no bounds.
In the next moment the small party found itself hemmed in by a knot of raging black devils, and Heideck was no longer in doubt that it was only a question of bravely fighting to the death.The foremost of the more violent of their assailants he was able to keep off by firing at them the last five shots that remained in his revolver.
The last shot snuffed out the light of a black-bearded fellow just at the very moment when he was attacking Edith Irwin with his brutal fists.Then Heideck threw his revolver, useless in that he could not load it afresh, into the face of one of the grinning fiends, and clasping his left arm, which was now free, round Edith, and pressing her tightly to him, carried on a desperate struggle with his sword.
For Mrs.Baird and her children he could do nothing further.Now that he had seen his faithful Morar Gopal fall under the blows of some Mohammedans he felt that they were irretrievably lost.He had seen how the Colonel's wife had had her clothes torn in shreds from her body; he heard the heartrending cry of anguish with which, under the blows and thrusts of her inhuman torturers, she called for her children.But at all events he was spared the agony of seeing with his own eyes the end of the innocent little girls.
They disappeared from his view in the terrible confusion, and as they were besides already half dead from terror, Providence would, at all events, have the pity not to let them feel the tortures of the death which their unfeeling butchers had prepared for them.
And what of Edith?
She was not in a faint.In her features one could read nothing of the anguish of horror that overcomes even the bravest in the face of death.One might imagine that all that was going on around her had lost its terrors since Heideck's arm held her fast.
But the moment was not favourable for allowing Heideck to feel the pleasurable bliss of her love.His strength was at an end and, although with the exception of a slight injury on the shoulder he was unwounded, he yet felt it intolerably hard to wield the sword whose heavy blows had hitherto kept their assailants (with the exception of some adventuresome spirits, who had paid dearly for their impudence) at a respectful distance.At the very moment that fatigue compelled him to drop his weapon, Edith and he would be given over helpless to the devilish cruelty of this horde of human beasts.That he knew full well, and, therefore, although before his eyes there floated, as it were, a blood-red mist, he collected the last remnant of his strength to postpone this terrible moment yet for a little-- All of a sudden something unexpected, something wonderful, happened--something that in his present condition he could not understand at all; innumerable cries of terror and alarm mingled with the frenzied, triumphant howlings of the rage-intoxicated Indians.With the irresistible force of a wave the whole thickly packed swarm of human beings surged forwards and against the houses on both sides of the street.The trotting of horses, loud words of command, the sound of slashing blows were heard, and the bodies of bearded cavalrymen were visible above the heads of the crowd.
It was a squadron of Cossacks which was mercilessly hewing its way through the crowd.The town was then actually in the hands of the Russians, and orders had evidently been given, the better to prevent further massacre and incendiari**, to clear the street of the fanatic mob.
So the fierce-looking horsemen then swept the way before them clear of all obstacles.And they did their business well; for nothing could withstand the blows from the whips fitted at the end of the lash with thin hard sticks, which in their hands became terrible instruments of punishment.
Heideck suddenly saw himself free of his assailants, and as he with Edith pressed against the wall of a house, they remained happily safe from the horses' hoofs as well as from the blows of the knout which were being dealt out wildly around him.
But the keen eyes of a Cossack officer had perceived the little group amid the great heap of dead and wounded.He rode up to them, and as he thought he recognised in Heideck's khaki dress the English uniform, he gave certain orders to his men, the meaning of which was soon apparent to them both, for they were at once placed between the horses of two Cossacks, and without knowing whither they were being taken, passed through the streets lit up by the flames of the burning houses.
