It was within an hour of sunset when John and Ferrier reached the fort.
They looked first of all to see whether it was possible to raise the
stones which had been cast into the pool, for the purpose of repairing
the wall, and found, as John had suspected, that they were too deep
below the surface.
"We must make the best of it," said John. "It's lucky we hadn't got
more of the wall down. They won't bother us to-night, that's one
comfort. They'll think twice before crossing the causeway in the dark."
It proved as he had said. A careful watch was kept all through the
night, but nothing happened to disturb them. As soon as there was a
glimmer of light John went to the gate with Ferrier to survey the
surroundings. Except for the clump of woodland half-a-mile away on the
east there was nothing that afforded good cover, and it struck Ferrier
that it would be a good plan to seize the wood with the fighting men
before the enemy could occupy it. But when he passed over the causeway
with John and a dozen of the natives they discovered to their vexation
that they were too late. They had advanced but a short distance when
they were met by a volley from among the trees, and though none of the
party was hit, John considered it prudent to retire into the fort and
await developments there.
During the rest of the day the enemy made no serious attack. The smoke
from their camp-fires was seen rising above the trees, and now and then
a shot was fired if any of the garrison showed themselves at the gate or
in the gap of the wall; but the enemy were indifferent marksmen, and the
day passed without casualties.
"Things don't look very rosy, do they?" said Ferrier, as he lay on the
ground discussing the situation with John. They had found when they
came to look into matters that some of the porters during their hurried
flight had abandoned their loads. Two boxes of ammunition were missing,
and several baskets of provisions. Said Mohammed was in great distress
at the loss of the package containing cocoa, condensed milk, and
marmalade. This, however, was not so serious as the loss of grain. The
total food supply, including the provisions found in the fort, would not
last more than three or four days; and John, though he did not say so,
thought that Ferrier would have done better to retreat towards the farm
than to advance chivalrously to rejoin him. He considered that it would
have been possible for himself and his fighting men, unencumbered with
baggage of any great weight, to have made a rapid march after
demolishing the fort, and joined hands with Ferrier probably twenty
miles nearer home. But fate had ordained otherwise; the situation must
be faced as it existed.
"Things certainly do not look rosy," John replied to Ferrier's remark,
"but they might be worse--which is a pretty rotten platitude when you
come to think of it. It looks as if they mean to keep us boxed up here.
We shall have to get out when our food's exhausted, or starve, and I'm
inclined to think we had better make a dash for it at once, before the
men get weak. These natives who live mostly on grain food soon crock
up: they haven't anything like our reserve strength, whatever the
vegetarians may say."
"I don't know. My poor father and I passed through a village where the
people hadn't had any food for a week, and it was wonderful to see how
energetic they were when they saw us coming. They were all skin and
bone, dreadful-looking objects; but they weren't anything like so
crocked as we should be."
"Well, I suppose it all depends on what you are used to. We'll discuss
the pros and cons of vegetarianism when we're out of this and have got a
full choice of either food. At present we are likely to become
air-eaters before long."
"Aerophags, eh? or chameleons: they're supposed to live on air, aren't
they?"
"You seem very chirpy."
"Well, old chap, the fact is I'm so uncommonly glad we're both alive
that I am perhaps inclined to be a little----"
"Light-headed," suggested John.
"If you must be serious, I don't think your notion of an immediate dash
is a good one. The men have had a lot of hard marching, and we ought to
give them a good rest--a full day, at any rate."
"I dare say that would be wise, but the worst of it is that it will give
time for that crowd outside to grow still bigger, and the chances of our
getting through them safely will be slighter than ever."
"But remember they've got to eat, as well as we, and the more there are
of them the worse their position. The country we came through was
practically barren, and when they have used up the food they have with
them they'll have to range about for more. That'll be our chance. I
vote we sit tight for a while."
"All right. Here's Said with our supper: what is it to-night,
khansaman?"
"I suffer pangs, sir, in serving gents with such slops, et cetera, but
cupboard is bare, sir, to quote classic of Mother Hubbard; all I can
provide for sustenance is cassava bread, beans, and bovril. Incredulity
of native mind, sir, is as colossal as credulity. Carved wooden stick
is a devil right enough: but when I tell them my little brown bottle
contains concentrated essence of stall-fed ox, lo! they grin all over
their mug and ask where are its four legs."
"That's rather a good thing, for they won't envy us our supper. We
shall do very well, as long as it lasts."
"Ah, sir, I remember the beautiful words of Dr. Johnson, great
lexicographer: 'And every moment makes my little less.' Hunger is the
best sauce, sir, but it does not fill the saucepan."
This night, like the last, was undisturbed. On the afternoon of the
next day, when John had ceased to look for any offensive movement on the
part of the enemy, he saw a great crowd of them issue from the wood, and
come yelling across the ground towards the causeway.
"Hallo! They're getting desperate," he said to Ferrier. He immediately
brought up all the men who had firearms and placed them at the gap in
the wall, bidding them keep under cover and fire when he gave the word.
The yelling horde were met by a volley just as they reached the landward
end of the causeway; but though several men dropped it did not check the
rush, and John concluded from their intense excitement that they had
been stimulating their courage with fermented liquor. Some sprang on to
the causeway, and began to run across it; others took to the water,
which soon swarmed with black heads moving towards the fort. The
garrison fired as fast as they could reload, but the men rushing in
single file along the causeway did not present a good target, and the
swimmers were far too numerous to be dealt with by a dropping fire from
the wall. The defenders in their turn were how the mark for a fusillade
from the further shore of the pool, where several Swahilis had taken up
their position, finding a little shelter in the reeds, and doing their
best to cover the attack of the natives. John looked eagerly among them
for the big form of Juma, resolving if he saw him to pick him off; the
fall of their leader might demoralize or dishearten the rest. But Juma
never came in sight; apparently he was directing the movement from a
place of safety in the rear.
The men running across the causeway sprang into the water when they came
to the gap from which the bridge had been removed, and, swimming under
water, sought to scramble on to the narrow shelf of land which ran
beneath the wall at this part. At the same time those who had swum
round on either side were swarming on hands and knees up the steep bank.
The attack began to look more serious than John had anticipated. There
were several hundreds of the assailants, and to meet these he had but
forty-three, of whom only ten had rifles. The difficulty was increased
by the fact that when the enemy succeeded, as some of them did, in
effecting a lodgment, it was necessary that his men should show
themselves above the wall in order to shoot down upon them, thus
becoming exposed to the fire from the Swahilis. Leaving his riflemen at
the gap to deal with the men who came over the causeway and to keep down
as much as possible the fire from the shore, John ran with Ferrier to
whatever part of the wall was at the moment the most seriously
threatened. He had already proved the poor marksmanship of the
Swahilis, and, seeing that the enemy must be prevented at all costs from
entering the fort, he no longer troubled to seek cover, but ordered the
men to mount the wall and make the most of their advantage in being
several feet above their attackers. Ferrier and he, fully exposed to
the enemy's fire, ran from place to place encouraging the men, grasping
their rifles by the barrel so as to use them as clubs if any of the
storming party came near the top of the wall.
The extent of rampart to be defended was so great and the enemy so
numerous that in spite of all efforts many of them succeeded in
scrambling up the mound. Then, having reached the top, they set their
feet in crevices between the stones and clambered up with great agility,
with spears in their mouths. But no sooner did they show their heads
above the wall than John, or Ferrier, or some of the men were upon them,
and with clubbed rifles, spears, or fists, hurled them down the slope
and into the water. A few managed to mount on the wall before the
defenders could reach them, and held their position for a minute or two,
thrusting viciously with their spears and wounding several of the
garrison. John noticed these, and, hastily loading, called to his men
to drop down and then fired, following up the shot with a rush. This
group waited for no more, but sprang from the wall, fell headlong on the
slope, and rolled into the pool, whither one of their comrades, shot by
John's rifle, had already preceded them.
In spite of these checks, the enemy still came on. Those who had been
thrown down returned again to the assault, and were constantly
reinforced by others. More parties gained a temporary footing on the
wall; there was hand-to-hand fighting at several points at once; and
John began to fear that his men would lose heart and give way before
sheer weight of numbers. Neither he nor Ferrier could be everywhere,
and it was noticeable that the enemy held their ground longest where the
defenders had not the presence of the white men to give them confidence.
The tide was turned at last by Said Mohammed, who had a brilliant
inspiration. There was always a fire burning in the middle of the
enclosure. It suddenly occurred to him, when he saw his party beginning
to be hard pressed, to boil some water, and observing that John and
Ferrier were occupied at two different points far apart, he ran towards
the wall between them, where a group of the enemy were on the point of
springing down into the enclosure. He carried a can full of boiling
water. Aiming it at the biggest man of the group, just as he was
bending forward to spring, the Bengali hurled the canful at his head.
The scalding water fell not only on him, but on the man next him, and
there rose two frightful yells which drowned all other sounds of combat.
The injured men and their immediate comrades leapt frantically into the
pool; their cries caused a weakening of the attack elsewhere; and the
two white men, seizing the moment, though unaware at the time to what it
was due, laid about them still more lustily with their rifles.
The savages on the side where Said Mohammed had so opportunely
intervened were now seen swimming to the shore. Their panic was
speedily communicated to their fellows, and in a few moments at least
half of the attacking force were in retreat. The defenders being thus
free to devote all their attention to the enemy in the other quarter,
soon made short work of them, and after twenty minutes of exhausting
effort they saw the whole force making shorewards, and scurrying back
under cover. John's riflemen fired a few shots at them as they fled,
but he put a stop to this, thinking that the punishment they had already
received might have taught them a lesson and would break up the siege.
As he turned from the wall to see what casualties the garrison had
suffered, Said Mohammed came up to him with his usually solemn face
spread abroad with a smile. An empty can was swinging in his hand.
"I did that jolly well, sir: _Hoc solus feci_."
"By and by," said John impatiently, thinking that the Bengali had some
trifling act to relate at epic length. Said Mohammed's smile vanished
like an April sun behind a cloud. He looked sorrowfully after John's
retreating form, then brightened a little as he caught sight of Ferrier.
"Esteemed sir," he said, advancing towards him, "this humble billy was
the _Deus ex machina_."
"Eh! What! You aren't hurt, are you?" said Ferrier, hurrying by.
"Only in my soul," muttered Said Mohammed, gloom descending upon him.
"'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.'"
John and Ferrier spent the next half-hour in attending to the wounded.
Not a man had been killed; but several were suffering from spear wounds,
and still more from rifle shots. The white men were again struck by the
uncomplaining patience of the injured men.
"You may call it a lack of sensibility if you like," said Ferrier, "but
I guess it's a fine thing from a military point of view."
"One can understand how Wellington's army in the Peninsula, the scum of
the earth, as he called them, did what they did. I wish we could do
something for these poor chaps. One of them is done for, I'm afraid; I
don't feel fit to-day to dig out the bullets from the others. All we
can do is to bathe 'em and bandage them up; they've astonishing
vitality. Did you read some time ago about a fellow who got a bullet in
him in the Franco-Prussian war, and didn't have it removed till thirty
years afterwards? Hallo! You've had a knock yourself."
"So have you."
"I didn't know it," said John, looking himself up and down.
"I'm sorry to say it's behind," said Ferrier, with a smile: "just under
your shoulder. You'd better take your shirt off and let me see to it."
"After you. You've got a pretty gash in your neck. My face must have
scared 'em, and they didn't recover till I had turned, and then jabbed
me in the back."
"If we were only outside, Bill might find some of his herbs and plaster
us. However, we're lucky to have got off so well, and I hope we shan't
have anything worse to go through before we get back."
Said Mohammed was unwontedly silent when he brought their supper. He
handed them their bovril and cassava cakes without a word. John
suddenly remembered that he had brushed hastily past the Bengali just as
the fight was over.
"By the way, khansaman," he said, "you began to tell me something. Sorry
I was too busy to attend to you. What was it?"
"Trifling matter, sir, not worthy of august attention," murmured the
man.
"You made some remark about your billy, didn't you?" said Ferrier. "I
didn't quite catch it."
"Foreign lingo, sir: in short, Latin, reformed pronunciation."
"Ah! that accounts for it. I was taught by an old Westminster man. You
should take pity on my ignorance, khansaman."
"Accepting your invite, sir, I take you back to critical moment when all
seemed U P. The hour brings forth the man. There came into my mind the
lovely words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet laureate--
Fill the can, and fill the cup:
All the windy ways of men
Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.
There was the enemy, rising up like dust; here was the can, ready to be
filled. Whereupon I filled it in a jiffy, boiled it in the time
ordained by nature, and with this right hand hurled it in teeth of the
foe. The dust was laid, sir. Q.E.F."
"By Jove!" cried John, "I wondered why they slackened off all of a
sudden. You did jolly well, khansaman."
"Shows the usefulness of English literature," said Ferrier gravely. "You
never know what inspiration it may give at times of difficulty and
danger."
"Verree true, sir; and it makes me feel jolly bucked to know I have such
spanking good memory."