Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-07-20
A MYSTERIOUS SOUND.

Two children-a boy about 10 years old
anda girl somewhat younger-were play
ing hide-and-seek among broken pillars
and heaps of fallen stones down In the
dark cellars of ruined house in the
Hindoo fort of Fati-Ghur, in Northern
India.
1t was gloomy place-black, lone
some, dreary-and just the spot where
you might expect q wild cat or poison
GUS snake to pop out upon you at any mo-
ment; but Harry and Nellie did not seem
to mind it a bit, and went scampering
and laughing through the dim archways
and dark, ghostly vaults as merrily as if
they had been In kindergarten.
1t was certainly very strange place
to choose for a playground, and it was
stranger still that they should be playing
and laughing at all, with the shadow Of
death deepening day by day over them
selves, their fathers and the whole gar
rison of the fort.
War was raging throughout the entire
district, and all around Fati-Ghur lay
encamped great host of fierce Hindoo
warriors (more than twenty times as
many as the handful of brave men who
held the fortress), vowing never to leave
the place till they had taken it and killed
every living thing within its walls.
Three times had the besiegers made
furious attack on the fort, but each time
they had been beaten off with heavy loss
and did not seem inclined to try it again.
But all day long-and sometimes all
night, too-they kept banging away at
the wall with their cannon and muskets,
till no one could look over the battle
ments for fear of being shot dead, and
the sick and wounded men of the garri-
son were quito worn out with the cease
less din.
Worse still, food was beginning to run
short, and they would soon be forced to
surrender or be all starved to death, un-
less some one came to the rescue; and
there seemed to be little hope of that,
for it would have taken q large army,
as well as a brave one, to cut through
the forest of white turbans and colored
robes and dark, fierce faces and glitter
ing weapons that hemmed in the doomed
fortress on every side.
Sand we've helped to defend the fort,
too" said Harry to Nellie, as they paused
to rest, after running themselves quite
out of breath. 81 heard Capt. Markham
say SO myself, while I was helping
mamma to scrape lint for those soldiers
that were wounded last night"
"And I've torn up whole lot of rags
for bandages, cried Nellie, proudly; "and
Pm going to tear up lot more this after
noon. I do wish, though, they'd give
over fighting. Pm SO tired of those guns
banging away all night long, and it's so
horrid seeing the poor soldiers brought
in all cut and bleeding. There's poor
Sergt. Bennett, who made all those pretty
toys for me, has got such terrible place
all along one side of his head, where o
bullet hurt him the otherday; and it's so
sore that he can't sleep Bit"
e "Neyer mind" answered Harry, as
Stunning quite fatherly air, in virtue of
his being six months the older of the
two; "just you wait two or three DAYS
more, and then you'll see Gen. Rose and
his men come up from the other side of
the river and send all these black fellows
flying"
Z "But heard papa say yesterday" OBJ
jected Nellie, with rather grave look
on her round, rosy little face, "that Gen.
Rose has only few hundred men with
him just now; and surely they can't
fight a whole army at once?"
"Can't they?" cried Harry, disdain-
fully. Didn't Lord Give thrash sixty
thousand of them at Plassey with only
three thousand men of his own? And
didn't the Duke of Wellington send
the rajah's whole army scampering with
only two regiments? Just you wait and
see, that's all. I say, let's have another
game. You go and hide, and I'll hunt
for you"
Away went Nellie instantly, right into
the gloomiest and loneliest part of the
ruins, bent upon discovering some place
where even Harry himself would not be
able to find her.
Fearlessly she picked her way in al
most total darkness through one black
and dismal vault after another-for the
toughest soldier in the garrison was not
drawer than our little golden haired
Nellie-and at length she came to q SPOT
where two great masses of masonry had
fallen in such way as to lean against
each other, forming kind of low arch
very much like the mouth of a cavern.
Harry will never find me here" said
she to herself, triumphantly, as she
crept into the hole; and, finding it not
large enough to let her stand upright,
she lay right down upon the ground and
remained as quiet as mouse, chuckling
inwardly to think how puzzled Harry
would be when he came to look for her.
But scarcely had her ear touched the
earth when she became aware of a
strange, dull sound deep down below
her, like the measured beat of oars or
the noise which would DO made by some
one humping hard against padded
door.
What could it be? 1t was certainly not
Harry, and there was no one else down
there except herself; but the sound could
not be merely her fancy-she was quite
oaAN siASAs 6AkO >3Ad AC<AA 1tt dllAt WIlitk WAS
more, it seemed to be growing louder
and coming nearer.
Then, for the first time, little Nellie
began to feel frightened. Even in the
course of her short life she had seen in
the East Indian jungles SO many tigers
and crocodiles and huge snakes and other
terrible creatures that it seemed quite
natural to her that some unknown and
fearful monster should have its under
ground den beneath the fort and should
now be at work to dig its way out and
devour them all
Nellie scrambled headlong out of her
hiding place, never needing how sorely
herpoor little arms and face were bruised
by the rough stones, and darted out of
the vault in such haste as almost to
knock down Harry, whom she encoun-
tered just at the entrance.
"Oh, Harry" she painted, there's a
monster living here under the ground,
and it's trying to claw its way ont and
eat us!"