The telegrams were sent, and reply messages began to pour in, which kept
one man at the end of the telephone. About half-past ten a blue light
burned in the window across the river. There seemed something to do in
the native town of narrow streets and evil-smelling lanes, for the sound
of shouting and desultory firing rose above the stir of the fort. The
telegraph office abutted on the far end of the bridge, and Thwaite had
taken the precaution of bidding the native officer he had sent across
keep his men posted around the end of the passage. Now he himself took
thirty men, for the native town was the most dangerous point he had to
fear. The wires must not be cut till the last moment, and, as they
passed over the bridge and then through the English quarter, there was
small danger if the office was held. He found, as he expected, that the
place was being maintained against considerable odds. A huge mixed
crowd, drawn in the main from the navvies who had been employed on the
new road, armed with knives and a few rifles, and encouraged by certain
wild, dancing figures which had the look of priests, was surging around
the gate. The fighting stuff was Afridi or Chitrali, but there was
abundance of yelling from this rabble of fakirs and beggars who
accompanied them. Order there was none, and it was clear to Thwaite
that this rising had been arranged for but not organized.
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