Dishonored Read Online Free

now, please
     to hurry…!” She was shaking and her anxiety made the baby scream even louder. Alicia grabbed the ayah’s shoulders, fear
     making her long fingers dig painfully into the flesh. “What has happened?” she cried. “Tell me…?”
    “Mrs. Mills! Mrs. Mills!” They were interrupted by an urgent banging on the door. “Mrs. Mills! Are you in there? It’s Major
     Reece!”
    “Yes…! Oh my God!” Alicia ran to the door, flinging it open. “What is it?” The panic was making her dizzy, she could
     hardly breathe. “What’s happened?” She looked frantically past the major into the sitting-room of the house. “Bearer!” she
     shouted. “Bearer? Where are…?”
    “The bearer has gone, m’am!” Major Reece cut her short. “So have most of the servants. There’s trouble here…” He was
     armed with his sword and a pistol. “We have to leave now!”
    Alicia glanced back at the ayah. She tried to take some deep breaths, to calm herself down.
    “Can you dress quickly? We don’t have much time…” In the distance they heard a scream, a wild, animal sound, and Alicia
     began to shake. “Yes, yes I can… Oh God…” She ran back into the room and began to pull open the drawers in her chest,
     grabbing at her clothes, throwing them into a heap on the floor. She couldn’t think, she was too frightened. Suddenly the
     sound of the rabble hit them; a terrifying murderous yell and the ayah let out a sob. It brought Alicia to her senses.
    Opening the tiny drawer, she grabbed the baby’s layette, flinging the tiny garments at the ayah. She ripped the silk shawl
     from around her shoulders and ran forward, throwing it across the baby to hide it. “Go,” she cried urgently, “take the baby
     and hide under the verandah… right down into the corner where the wine is kept!” She pushed the ayah toward the back
     door of her bedroom. “Go on! Go…!” Alicia had started to cry as the ayah clung weeping to her hand. She wrenched it free,
     not able to look at the baby. “Go, I tell you!” she shouted. “Go on…! Go!… Go now!” She turned away as Major Reece
     ran into the room. “Mrs. Mills! Hurry! Please hurry!” He was white and sweating, his pistol in one hand. “There’s no time!
     Please, come with me!” Alicia wiped her face on the sleeve of her silk night-dress, unable to stop her crying now and barefoot,
     she ran after the major out on to the verandah.
    “Oh my God…! No…!” She looked desperately about her at the sight of the camp on fire, thick black smoke rising up
     into the clear blue sky, the heat everywhere.
    “Here…! Mrs. Mills? Here…!” The major had secured a ladder against the wall. “We have to get up on to the roof… we…” He looked behind him as the first of the rabble came into view, soaked in blood and screaming, the steel of
     his blade flashing menacingly as it caught the light. He raised his arm, aimed his pistol and fired. The man went down.
    “Come on!” he yelled at Alicia, who stood almost paralyzed with fear. “For God’s sake…! Come on!” He would not go up
     the ladder without her. “Come on…!” But it was already too late. As she stumbled toward the ladder, her legs gave way
     and she lost control of her bladder. Helpless, she sank to her knees weeping as a group of seepoys galloped into the grounds
     of the bungalow, slashing violently at the two officers holding the entrance and mutilating their bodies in a matter of seconds.
    Major Reece never managed his second shot.
    Much, much later, when the bloody chaos the mutineers had wrought was discovered, there was very little recognizable left
     of either him or Alicia Mills.

3
    I T WAS DARK BY THE TIME C OLONEL M ILLS SET OUT AGAIN FOR Moraphur. He had ten men and three officers of the Sixth Dragoon Guards with him; that was all the command at Meerut could
     spare. They rode long and hard, the colonel sick to the pit of his stomach at the sight of the devastation he had