I am glad to know that you will make him
happy."
This was said in the room that had been allotted to Isobel, an ayah
of one of the ladies in the fort acting as interpreter. The girl
had woke up in the morning flushed and feverish, and the Doctor,
when sent for, told her she must keep absolutely quiet.
"I am afraid I am going to have her on my hands for a bit," he
said to Bathurst. "She has borne the strain well, but she looks to
me as if she was going to have a smart attack of fever. It is well
that we got her here before it showed itself. You need not look
scared; it is just the reaction. If it had been going to be brain
fever or anything of that sort, I should have expected her to break
down directly you got her out. No, I don't anticipate anything
serious, and I am sure I hope that it won't be so. I have put my
name down to go up with the next batch of volunteers. Doctors will
be wanted at the front, and I hope to have a chance of wiping out
my score with some of those scoundrels. However, though I think
she is going to be laid up, I don't fancy it will last many days."
That afternoon a messenger from Havelock brought down the terrible
news that they had fought their way to Cawnpore, only to find that
the whole of the ladies and children in the Subada Ke Kothee had
been massacred, and their bodies thrown down a well. The grief and
indignation caused by the news were terrible; scarce one but had
friends among the prisoners.
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