CHAPTER XVII.

A BOMBARDMENT AND AN EXCITING ADVENTURE.

To give the reader a detailed or even succinct account of our campaign in Persia, forms no part of our plan, nor is it necessary thereto; suffice it, that we must refer to some of those movements in which Gillian Lamond bore a part, and during which, even in his minor capacity, he was fated to figure prominently.

An amelioration of the tempestuous weather at Bushire tempted General Outram, on the 4th of March, to despatch an expedition against Mohammerah, while leaving a sufficient force (3,000 men) under General Stalker, in Bushire, to keep that garrison and hold the Persians in check. He took with him 4,000 men, including five companies of the Highlanders and five others of H.M. 64th regiment, to fight the Persians, who were averred to be 13,000 strong at Mohammerah, on which seven of our ships of war were to hurl their broadsides at a hundred yards' distance.

Passing the bleak, rocky isle of Icarus, then held by the 4th Punjaub Rifles, and then the mouth of the Euphrates, rolling as it rolled in the days of Alexander and of Xenophon, by the 23rd the whole squadron was quietly at anchor off the doomed place. With his comrades who crowded the side of the warships, Gillian could see the Persian cavalry, clad in light blue, with high fur caps and white cross-belts, galloping in clouds along the great stream of the classic ages, flourishing their flashing sabres, and poising their slender lances, as if they were seeking to impress the British with high ideas of the terrible troops they were about to oppose.

All the Persian batteries were manned, strong, grim, and sulky they looked; the walls were lined, and the gunners, with their inevitable black fur caps, were seen standing by the guns, while, in the gentle breeze of a calm and beautiful day, the banner with the Persian Lion swelled gracefully out from its tall flagstaff, and ere long little more than it became visible, when the general bombardment began, and the batteries replied, till the increasing breeze dispelled the smoke, and then a striking and beautiful scene presented itself.

The ships of war all decked in brilliant bunting to their trucks, as if for a holiday, were ranged with all their flaming ports on one side; on the other, lay the bank of the Euphrates, glittering in the sunshine of the early morning, fringed with date trees and green, luxuriant shrubbery, beyond the openings in which the brilliantly-clad Persian cavalry could be seen uselessly galloping to and fro; and closer at hand were the thundering batteries of Mohammerah, against which the troops now began to disembark; the Highlanders, under Havelock, in the _Berenice_, leading the way, as he often led them to glory in the more terrible days that were to come, for, of all our regiments in the East, the Ross-shire Buffs were his favourites; and now the old Staff-Colonel, who seemed a regular fire-eater, was by his side armed, not with a regulation sword, but a prodigious Indian tulwur.

So crowded was the deck of the _Berenice_, so densely were the Highlanders massed thereon, that had a single shot struck her, the result would have been calamitous; but the dreadful broadsides of the Indian navy protected them, and boat after boat, with its living freight, and a piper blowing defiance in its bow, swept in shore, while Outram, landing at another point, with the grenadiers of the 64th, made terrible havoc among the Persian matchlocks who held a grove of date palms, and cleared a way for the whole force to advance against the main point to be attacked, the camp of the Shahzadeh, uncle of Nassir-ed-Deen, leaving the shipping to pound the town.

One of our 68-pound shots fell crashing into the Persian camp.

"Oh" exclaimed the terrified Shahzadeh, "if they fire things like these, the sooner we are off the better!"

His advice was taken at once; the whole Persian army abandoned its camp, and melted away like a dissolving view, abandoning all the cannon, and leaving to its fate Mohammerah, which soon surrendered after the explosion of its grand magazine, by a random shell from our shipping.

The scene then was an awful one! Gillian looked with an emotion of shrinking horror on the legs, arms, hands, and other mangled fragments of poor humanity that protruded from amid the fire-blackened and shattered ruins; and among all this ghastly _débris_ lay the wounded Persians in heaps, mingled with the dead, their hideous cuts and gashes exposed, all undressed, to the now blazing sunshine, the sharp whirling dust and the agonizing stings of great insects that battened in their blood.

There lay, half disembowelled by a cannon shot, and dying, a Persian officer, who, in answer to some questions of Sir James Outram, informed him that Mrs. Hartley had not been transmitted as yet to Teheran, but was conveyed about by the Shahzadeh in _takhteraidan_, or mule litter, the usual carriage of a Persian lady of rank, and Captain Hartley ground his teeth as he listened.

A few minutes after this the Persian expired, and in one of his pockets was found a letter, addressed to his wife at Teheran, stating that he was certain there would be a conflict on the morrow, foreboding his own fate, bidding her tenderly farewell, and entrusting the care of her and their little ones to his brother in Teheran; to which place it was at once transmitted by Sir James Outram, so true it is that--

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

Hartley, of course, rode as yet with the General's staff, doing his duty steadily and obeying all orders, but looking distraught and like the ghost of his former self.

Sir James Outram now ascertained that the Persians had fallen back, intending to halt at a place called Akwaz, a hundred miles distant on the Karun River, the ancient _Eulœis_, which traverses the Bachtiyara range of mountains and falls into the Gulf of Persia by several channels, one of which joins the Euphrates.

At Akwaz stood their great depot of provisions and all munitions of war, to destroy which and anticipate their reaching the point, he instantly despatched a small expedition, consisting of only 150 men of the 64th regiment and 150 Highlanders under Captain Duncan MacAndrew, a veteran of the Affghan wars, on board of three steamers, the _Comet_, _Planet_, and _Assyria_, and it was Gillian's fate to be in the first-named vessel. They had in tow a gun-boat armed with two 24-pound howitzers.

This expedition followed collaterally by water the track of the retreating Persians along the beautiful and varied scenery of the river's bank, and parties landing from time to time, could trace the marks of their route, the hoof indentures of the horses, the wheel tracks of five pieces of cannon, and of the mule litter.

On the morning of the 30th of March, the expedition made such progress towards Akwaz, that the exploring party found the ground on which the Persians had been but twenty-four hours before, the new graves of several who had just been interred, and a straggler informed Commodore Rennie that their force consisted of seven battalions and 2,000 horse, with four guns, the fifth, which was now unserviceable, being towed up the river; and to pursue all this column were only 300 British soldiers!

To capture the gun in the towed boat, the _Comet_ shot ahead under high steam and with canvas set as the wind served, but failed to do so till next day, when the other ships came up, and the whole Persian force were known to be massed somewhere beyond a low range of sandy hills that lay near the bank of the river, and the boat with the disabled gun was seen moored and half hidden among some thick, dense mangrove-like shrubbery that overhung the Karun.

"Now to capture the gun," said the Captain of the _Comet_--"I want but a party only of a few--who will volunteer?"

"I, sir," said Gillian, starting forward; "but who will follow me?"

"I, and I--and I!" cried every man, rushing forward.

"This won't do, Lamond," said the officer commanding, laughing; "four men are enough."

"Then, sir, I shall take the four next me."

"Good--here is the pinnace--jump in--shove off."

The Commodore's despatch simply calls this party "a corporal's guard of the 78th Highlanders," but omitted to mention who the corporal was; so that was left for Outram to report. Every Highlander then would have volunteered to follow Gillian, for all who knew him, especially the men of his company, liked and respected the lad for his gentleness, good conduct, orderly ways, and strict sobriety, nor were the officers slow to recognize these and other good qualities.

He and his four men loaded and capped their rifles as the pinnace was pulled in shore, and speedily secured the gun, which proved to be a brass 12-pounder of exquisite workmanship, and while softly, but speedily, the seamen were hoisting it into the pinnace, he sprang ashore and crept up the bank to have a peep at the country beyond, all unaware that the Commodore and the old Staff-Colonel, who were watching him through their glasses, were reprehending his temerity and the probable delay it might cause in no measured terms.

Gillian could see far off near a mosque that stood between the brown sandhills, four dark columns of infantry massed and halted, their arms glittering in the rising sun; on the plain, in the middle-distance, was a column of some 2,000 cavalry also halted, and close by him, within some fifty yards at the utmost, under the shelter of a beautiful grove of palm trees, where evidently it had passed the night--he saw, what?

The _takhteraidan_ with its escort! The latter consisted of six Persian lancers clad in long blue coats, with white trousers and cross-belts. In one was slung a sabre, in the other a matchlock, and they evidently belonged to the Bachtyara tribes, who form the flower of the Shah's cavalry. They were all dismounted, girthing up, adjusting their bridles, and feeding their horses prior to starting again in the direction of Akwaz.

At a window of the mule litter he could see a small pale face, evidently that of their fair English captive, gazing intently towards the river, where the smoke of the British steamers ascended high and thin into the clear ambient air of the early spring morning. Gillian's plan was instantly formed, for he had Lowland prudence that tempered his Highland fire, and he resolved to rescue Mrs. Hartley or die!

The gun was already on board the pinnace, when by a low whistle he attracted the attention of his four comrades and beckoned them up to his side, where in a moment he told them his plans, which were simply to fire a volley, rush on in the smoke, and bring off the lady; and the whole affair was done and over nearly in the time we take to write these lines.

"Not a shot must be thrown away--come, each, a man in succession," said Gillian, in a low voice, that excitement rendered husky.

Aiming from the knee, the Highlanders each selected a Persian.

"_Now!_" cried Gillian. The rifles rang together as one; there was a yell of agony, and five Persians were stretched on the ground killed or wounded, while the sixth fled. Gillian rushed to the mule litter; its pale and terror-stricken occupant _was_ Mrs. Hartley, whose trembling hands vainly strove to unfasten the door; but Gillian wrenched it open with his bayonet, and with a strange and indescribable cry--joy, prayer, and terror mingled--she fairly fell into his arms, and without a word he bore her to the boat.

Not a moment was to be lost, as already a scattered cloud of Persian cavalry from the column on the plain, were galloping in wild and hot confusion towards them, unslinging their matchlocks as they came on, and already opening fire at random on the high jingle by the river side. Ere they reached it, the crew of the pinnace had shipped their oars, and with a defiant cheer were pulling into the fairway, from whence the guns of the _Comet_ sent over their heads a few round shot booming and shells screaming. These soon cooled the ardour of the horsemen, and put them to flight; but not until they had peppered the pinnace with matchlock balls, one of which grazed the cheek of the coxswain and broke the left collar-bone of Gillian, and inflicted on him other injuries that were internal; but after the first shrill cry elicited by pain and alarm escaped him, he could only groan through his set teeth, while the blood flowed fast from his wound, and his arm hung powerless by his side.

He was borne up to the deck of the _Comet_ in a fainting condition, and was scarcely conscious of the buzz that surrounded him, or the joy of her he had rescued, as she clung to the breast of her husband.