faster; the horses, and men too, seemed wild with terror; they dashed through the infantry, carrying all before them; they crashed in amongst the two troops of artillery, separating the horses from the guns, and the gunners from both; nearly all the latter, with their officers, were cut down by the Ghoorchurras in full chase of the English dragoons, and six of the guns were captured. But not for that did the Gallopers' pull upon they went-now far out of the battle-but still going at wild speed, till they rode in amongst the wounded, lying in their dhoolies,* many of whom were trampled to death; and the whole regiment went racing like madmen right through the hospital tents. Yet still they never drew rein! At last the horses became quite exhausted, and, incapable of further exertion, they stopped of their own accord, but not until incalculable mischief had been done, not alone to the general fortune of the day, but also to their own immediate comrades of the artillery as well as to the wretched wounded who had been killed in the miserable panic. The 'Gallopers' did not appear in action again that day—for them the disastrous battle of Chillianwallah was at an end!

By dusk the Sikhs were supposed to have been

* Field-litters, borne by natives.

beaten along their whole line, and the fighting was suspended. But there was no pursuit; on the contrary, the English had to retire for a mile or two, leaving all their wounded and dying on the field to be subsequently murdered by the relentless enemy, while nearly all the Sikh guns taken during the battle were recaptured and carried off in triumph within the entrenchments, whence a royal salute was fired in honour of Shere Sing's victory. We also claim it as a victory, inscribe it on our roll of conquest, and emblazon it on our regimental colours; but, as Captain Blunt aptly remarked when telling the tale of the Disastrous Trumpet-Call, “If it was a victory at all, it was a most imperfect one. I should be inclined to term it, rather, a drawn battle, and particularly hard drawn against ourselves. We 'Gallopers' ran away like real steeple-chasers: and perhaps if we hadn't boasted so much beforehand, we should have been less laughed at than we were. For years we were the laughing-stock of the British army, and, say I, 'serve us right too!""

A LITTLE GAME.

CHAPTER I.

A GOOD STROKE OF BUSINESS.

R. JABEZ CLICKER sat in his comfortable

MR.

offices, Rampart Row, Bombay, meditating deeply on men and things. It was the middle of the hot season, so Mr. Clicker had flung off his coat, opened his waistcoat, removed his shirt collar and cumbrous necktie, and sat under the punkah, tilting himself gently to and fro in an American rocking-chair, while he smoked a Manilla cheroot and sipped at some iced brandy and soda-water. There was but little furniture in the large and lofty room: an office-table of considerable dimensions, in front of which Mr. Clicker was sitting, littered with papers and writing materials; a smaller table, between the two large open and greenshaded windows, holding a few mercantile books of reference; two or three chairs scattered here and there; and a washing-stand in one corner, completed the equipment. A side-door led into a sort of passage common to other offices in the same building; while one behind the large table opened into a smaller

room, where a couple of lazy Portuguese clerks were droning over the correspondence the previous day's English mail had brought for their master. It was getting on towards midday-about the most quiet hour of the twenty-four in the tropics—and not a sound was to be heard save the sleep-producing groaning of the heavy punkahs, swinging to and fro, as they were slowly pulled by natives stationed in the passage. Mr. Jabez Clicker's offices seemed, beyond doubt, to be that day the very temples of Morpheus. But Mr. Clicker was not by any means asleep; quite the contrary—he was rather more wide-awake than usual, and that was saying a great deal. As I have said above, he was meditating profoundly on men and things; the men being, like himself, merchants or commission agents; the things being cotton, and all that appertains to that valuable product. And Mr. Clicker's reason for meditating on these twin subjects so profoundly was because it was the year 1864, when the American war was raging; when King Cotton had it all his own way from Bombay to Nagpoor, and in many other places besides ; when fortunes in the staple were won and lost in the course of a few hours; when the wisest lost their heads, the young and the foolish their honesty, and virtue as well, in the fever of speculation; and because the English mail of the previous evening had brought the news

that Liverpool and Manchester were hungering and thirsting for cotton, and that prices might be expected to rise. The question was, how high they would rise, i.e., how far it would be safe to buy at present Bombay rates on the chance of the home market still going up. But Bombay rates were fluctuating fearfully every halfhour, and for the ordinary dealer-or speculator rather, for in those days every man was a victim to wild commercial gambling-it was almost even chances whether he won or lost. Men certainly tried to manipulate those chances, but they burned their fingers even more often than did the plain-sailers; and of all these things was Mr. Jabez Clicker profoundly taking stock, while apparently waiting for some one behind his time. As the mid-day gun-fire came booming in the windows, the merchant started up, passed his jewelled but knotty hand over his lanky yellow chops, as if to force them to a decision, paused a moment, and then roared out with discordant voice,

"De Souza!"

The lazy Portuguese started up from the doze they were enjoying, and while Pinto began to scribble away (at nothing) like wildfire, the dusky De Souza drew aside the heavy curtain separating the two rooms, and entered the presence of his master.

"Just step down to the railway station at Boree