A FIGHT FOR LIFE.
Jack ran forward to the door and tried to thrust it into place again.
It swung to, for its hinges were uninjured, and as he closed it, Me
Dain was beside him with a short, thick plank he had brought from the
other side of the room. The plank was placed diagonally against the
door, its head caught under a cross-bar piece of the framework, and,
for the moment, the open gap was filled up. The rifles in the hands of
Jim and Buck had been going steadily from the moment the Kachins flew
out of their cover, and Jack now poked the muzzle of his weapon
through a broken plank, and fired swiftly and steadily into the mass
of assailants racing directly towards him. The whole thing happened so
quickly that the dacoits had not crossed more than one half of the
space intervening between monastery and jungle when Jack opened fire.
The withering storm of bullets poured from the three magazines had no
more effect in checking the dacoit rush than if the bullets had been
drops of rain. The men actually struck dropped, of course, but their
comrades were not in the least terrified by their fall. The short,
broad, powerful figures rushed on as undauntedly as ever, their dark,
wild faces full of the savage light of battle, their rough, deep
voices uniting in a terrible yell of rage and of fierce lust for
vengeance. A shower of bullets from their muzzle loaders pattered on
the door or whistled in through the windows.
Buck gave a grunt of pain as a bullet cut him across a shoulder; Jim
and Jack were untouched. The Kachins did not stay to reload, and in
another moment their dark faces and blue forms were massed in the
doorway, and the door rang under the tremendous blows delivered upon
it by their _dahs_, weapons so broad and heavy as to be sword and axe
in one. The windows, luckily, were too narrow for them to swarm
through, and when Jim and Buck could no longer rake the flying crowd,
they ran to the door to help their young leader. This was the moment
when the Mauser pistol proved itself an invaluable weapon. Quicker and
handier in the narrow space than a rifle, it poured its stream of
heavy bullets into the assailants in an almost unbroken stream, as the
defenders slipped clip after clip, each containing ten cartridges,
into the magazine.
Fanatically brave as were the desperate Kachins, this was a punishment
too severe for mortal flesh and blood to endure. Of a sudden they
broke and fled, leaving a heap of dead and wounded about the door, and
a trail of fallen men to mark the track they had followed.
"Are you hurt, Buck?" cried Jack, drawing a long breath. Fiercely as
they had been pressed, he had not forgotten Risley's grunt of pain.
"Snicked my shoulder, that's all," replied Buck.
Jim looked at the wound and nodded.
"A snick it is, Buck," he agreed, "and a lucky thing for you. A bit
lower, and it would have smashed the bone."
"We'll wash the wound and tie it up," said Jack.
"Later on, later on," murmured Buck. "We've got no time to spare at
present. What's the little move next with these boys in blue."
"Do you think they will attack us again?" cried Jack.
"Sure thing," said Buck, "they're a tough crew, I can tell you. We've
got a lot more to do before we chill 'em cold."
"That's true," said Dent. "After they smell blood there's no more
holdin' them than you can hold a tiger."
"We've punished them terribly already," said Jack.
It was his first battle, and in true English fashion he had fought his
hardest for his own life and the lives of his comrades. Now he looked
with a troubled eye on the fallen, and sighed.
Jim Dent nodded at him with a friendly smile. "I know just how you
feel, Jack," he said. "But the thing is pure necessity. If you hadn't
shot that chap back in the path there, he'd have had Me Dain's head
off as sure as sin, and after you shot him, the rest followed as
straight as a string."
"True, Jim," said Jack, "the whole thing lies at their door."
"Say, Jack," murmured Buck, "you'd better get your Bisley bull's-eye
trick on that _jingal_ again. They're goin' to try another shot or
two."
Jack ran to the window, and as he did so, the _jingal_ roared, and
crash came the heavy shot into the door. It struck a weak place,
burst through, and rolled across the floor. In another moment Buck had
picked it up and brought it forward.
"Say, boys," murmured Risley, "no wonder this _jingal_ makes the poor
old door crack. Look here!" He displayed a ball of iron, nearly the
size of a cricket ball.
"By George! What a smasher!" said Dent. "The door's bound to go if
they can get two or three of those straight on it."
Jack glanced at the heavy shot, then turned to the window to watch for
the gunners in order to check them in working their destructive piece.
"I can't see them," he said. "There's no sign of them at all."
Jim and Buck joined him at once.
"There's the bunch of trees they were at work among," said Dent. "They
must have drawn the _jingal_ farther back into the jungle."
"Yes, but if they can shoot at us we ought to be able to see them,"
said Jack.
"Sure thing," murmured Buck. "Where's the little old cannon gone to?"
In another moment all three gave a cry of surprise. The mystery was
made clear before their eyes. A sudden puff of smoke burst from a
tangle of vines and creepers twenty yards to the left of the _jingals_
former position, and a second ball crashed into the door, shook every
plank in it, and ripped a great piece out where it struck. The dacoits
had swiftly cut down and lashed a number of saplings across a couple
of trees to form a cover for their gun. Over the slight barricade they
had thrown a great tangle of creeping plants, and the whole concealed
and protected them in a wonderful fashion.
"They know how to play their own game," said Jack, as he searched the
spot with a few bullets. "They're hidden all right."
"Sure thing," said Buck. "They're up to all the tricks of the jungle.
I don't see how we're going to stop 'em gettin' the door down now.
It's pure luck firin' into that tangle."
Within the next half hour Buck's fears were verified. Shot after shot
was launched from the heavy _jingal_, and at the short range the
gunners found the door an easy mark, and pounded it again and again
until it was utterly shattered, and the opening into their stronghold
was left defenceless. Nor could the besieged make the gap good with
any other barrier. Between the firing of the heavy balls a steady
fusillade of musketry was poured into the doorway, and no one dared to
show himself there.
The three comrades stood each at a narrow window, each with his
weapons charged, and his mind sternly resolved to make the banditti
pay a heavy price for his life.
"They'll come again soon," muttered Jim Dent. "We must pump lead into
'em like mad as they cross the open, then hold the doorway as long as
we can."
"Yes," agreed Jack. "We must not let them get in if there's any way of
keeping them out. Once they surround us, their _dahs_ will finish the
struggle in a few strokes."
"Say, I fancy I see a bunch of 'em just beyond the _jingal_," said
Buck. He fired, but there was no sign that his bullet had taken
effect. "They're gone again," he continued in a tone of
disappointment.
There was now silence while each watched the fringe of the jungle with
the utmost vigilance. Minute after minute passed, and not a sign
appeared of the terrible little dacoits. The _jingal_ was fired no
more, the musketry had dropped, and the stillness remained perfectly
unbroken. Anyone less experienced in jungle warfare than Jim Dent
would have concluded that the fierce Kachins for once had had their
fill of fighting, and had retired towards their fastnesses among the
hills. But he bade his comrades stand close and be ready.
"There is some trick in the wind," he said. "What it is we shall see
before long if we keep our eyes open."
Suddenly into this silence came the sound of heavy blows on the planks
over their heads. These planks formed the ceiling of the lower room
and the floor of the upper. The noise in this unexpected direction
made them jump, and then Buck roared, "Who's aloft?"
The head of Me Dain was now shown at the head of the flight of steps
leading to the next story.
"Me up here," said the Burman. "Me got a job." He held in his hand the
heavy _dah_ which had so nearly been driven through his own neck, and
he now returned to his task without making any further explanation.
Buck moved as if to investigate into the Burman's doings, but at this
moment Jack gave a cry of surprise, and he turned hastily back to his
window.
"What do you see, Jack?" said Dent quickly. "Are they coming?"
"Something's coming," cried Jack, and pointed. "Look straight opposite
to us," he went on. "It seems as if a piece of the jungle were moving
upon us."