There
was a desperate fight for a moment. I remember that Subadar Piran
--one of the best native officers in the regiment, by the way--
made a rush at me, and I shot him through the head with a revolver.
At the same moment a ball hit me, and down I went. At the moment a
Sepoy fell dead across me, hiding me partly from sight. The fight
lasted a minute or two longer. I fancy a few fellows escaped, for
I heard shots outside. Then the place became quiet. In another
minute I heard a crackling, and saw that the devils had set the
mess room on fire. One of our men, who was lying close by me, got
up and crawled to the window, but he was shot down the moment he
showed himself. I was hesitating whether to do the same or to lie
still and be smothered, when suddenly I rolled the dead Sepoy off,
crawled into the anteroom half suffocated by smoke, raised the
lid of a very heavy trapdoor, and stumbled down some steps into a
place, half storehouse half cellar, under the mess room. How I knew
about it being there I don't know. The trap closed over my head
with a bang. That is all I remember.'
"'Well, Charley, curiously enough my dream was also about
an extraordinary escape from danger, lasting, like yours, only a
minute or two. The first thing I remember--there seems to have
been some thing before, but what, I don't know--I was on horseback,
holding a very pretty but awfully pale girl in front of me.
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