The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-06-20
WARNING FROM THE DEPTHS
How the Play Of Two Children Saved
a British Garrison in India.

dark cellars of a ruined house in the
Hindoo fort of Fati-Ghur, in Northern
India.
1t was a gloomy place-black, lone
some, dreary-and just the spot where
you might expect a wild cat or a poison
Gus snake to pop II tupon you at any mo-
ment; but Harry and Nellie did O tseem
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 q kindergarten.
1t was certainly a 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.
Wa was raging throughout the entire
district. and all around Fati-Ghur lay
encamped q 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 a
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 nc one could look over the battle
ments for fear Of being shot dead, and
the sick and wounded men of the garri-
son were quite 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 n came to the rescue; and
there seemed to be little hope of that,
for it would have taken a 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 serape lint for those soldiers
that were wounded last night"
"And I've torn up o whole lot of rags
for bandages, cried Nellie, proudly; sand
Pm going to tear up a lot more this after
moor / do wish, though, they'd give
yer fighting. I'm 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 q terrible place
all along n side of his head, where a
bullet hurt him the other day; and it's SO
sore that he can't sleep a Bit"
"Never mind" answered Harry, as
Stunning quite a fatherly air, in virtue of
his being six months the older of the
two; ''just you wait two OF 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"
"But / heard papa say yesterday" OBJ
jected Nellie, with a rather grave look
on her round, rosy little face, s'that Gen.
Rose has only a few hundred men with
him just now; and surely they can't
fight a whole army at once?'
"Cant 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. l 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 ever Harry himself would not be
able to find her.
Fearlessly she picked her way in al
most total darkness through ono 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 a spot
where two great masses of masonry had
fallen in such a way as to lean against
each other, forming a kind of low arch
FCAy AlliCA 1lhC LAi0 ulCuRA VI u CdNSItI.
"Harry viii 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 a 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 be made by some
n humping hard against a padded
door.
What could 1t 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
sure that she did hear it, and, what 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 go 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
oro,pd dan houn,th fba Fort ard phn11d