In the Whirl of the Rising Part 22

"You may yet come to see the sound judgment even of that," he answered grimly.

And such are the coincidences, the ironies of life, that even as he spoke a couple of shots snapped forth from among the thorns along the top of the river bank, together with an astonishing whoop.

"Hi-ha! Lamont! Look out! Look out! The devils are coming!"

"That's Peters," he said.

"Why, what the deuce--" began Ancram, looking blank, as a horrible suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon him.

Both men stood staring in the direction of the sounds. Then one of them instinctively and characteristically slipped under cover of the house.

But that one was not Lamont. Now Peters appeared, sprinting in fine form across the open. Behind him, a flourish of shields above the thorn-bushes, and some threescore savages sprang forth at a run, determined to fall on the place before its surprised inmate or inmates should have time to realise what had happened. But they reckoned without one of the said inmates.

The magazine rifle spoke, and a bedizened warrior flung his shield in the air and plunged forward upon his face. Another followed suit--then another. A magazine rifle, accurately handled, is a terror, and so the a.s.sailants realised as a third went to ground, and then a fourth, and all in a moment's s.p.a.ce. With a loud cry of startled warning they halted, then dropped down into the cover of the bushes and stones, yet not before the marksman, detecting a momentary bunching of the crowd, had let go another shot, this time with more deadly effect still.

"What's the bag, Lamont?" cried Peters, with a laugh, though still panting with his run.

"Five, for cert. I think two or three more are damaged as well. Fired into the brown that last time."

"Well done--well done. Now I'm going to take a hand;" and diving into the house he quickly opened the armoury chest, of which he had a duplicate key, and produced a weapon exactly similar to Lamont's.

"Hallo, Ancram, you back again?" he cried in hurried greeting to that worthy. "Now you're going to see that fight you were spoiling for,"

going to the window which commanded the point of attack. "Oh, blazes!

The devils ain't going to give us a show after all."

For the enemy seemed to have vanished into empty air. Yet both knew that they were lying there meditating on the situation. Lamont's prompt and accurate shooting had been of incalculable moral effect; and that one man, standing out in the open, should be able to do such execution, all with the same gun and not even pausing to reload, was not less so.

Would that gun go on shooting for ever? was what they were asking themselves.

"Dig us out a drink, Lamont, while I keep an eye on our black brother,"

said Peters. "My tongue's hanging out after that run, I can tell you."

"That holds good of all hands, I guess," was the answer; and Ancram, after a considerable stiff dose, began to grow valiant and hold the fighting qualities of the concealed foe exceeding cheap.

"Don't crow yet, Ancram," said Peters grimly. "These are only the advance guard of a much bigger lot. You'll get all you want of them before to-night."

"No! Why d'you think that?" and even the abundant infusion of Dutch courage was not quite abundant enough to stifle the anxiety underlying the query.

"Because--Ah! There you are! I thought so."

A whiz of something, together with a double report. A bullet thudded hard upon the outside wall, knocking up a cloud of chips and dust. Then a regular fusillade rattled from the nearest thorn-bushes, and the vicious hum of missiles in uncomfortable proximity. At the same time tossing shields and glinting a.s.segais stirred along the mimosa fringe, as a swarm of savages broke into view, hurrying to the support of those who had first attacked.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A TRAP.

Ancram felt his face going cold and white. He was not by temperament especially brave, and had never seen a shot fired, or a blow struck in anger, with lethal weapon that is, in his life, and now the whiz and impact of these humming missiles, any one of which might knock him into the next world in less than a second, struck terror into his soul. So too did the sight of those long bright blades in the grip of these threatening savages, brawny of frame and ferocious of aspect, in their wild and fantastic war-gear of cow-tails and monkey skins and variegated hide. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was badly scared, and, what was worse, looked all that.

"Here--hi! Hold up!" cried Lamont, as ducking spasmodically to avoid a bullet that had whizzed nearly a yard over his head Ancram cannoned violently against him. "Confound it, you've upset all my 'peg,' which is a waste of good liquor. Never mind, there's plenty more, fortunately. You'd better have another yourself, Ancram."

"Er--ah--I think I had."

But the hand that held his gla.s.s trembled so violently that he spilled nearly half of what he had just mixed for himself. At the same time Peters burst into a roar of laughter, but not at this.

"There's a n.i.g.g.e.r," he explained, "who keeps bobbing his head round a stone, but he's in too much of a funk to keep it there; and the expression on his face as he bobs it back again is enough to kill a cat."

Ancram stared, and gave a sickly grin. He couldn't have raised a spontaneous laugh then--no not to save his life. Yet these other two were keenly enjoying the joke.

"They won't show in a hurry," said Lamont. "These magazine guns of ours have put the fear of the Lord into them."

"Will they go away then, and leave us?" said Ancram eagerly.

"Not much. They'll lie low till it's dark. Then they'll have things all their own way."

Ancram went pale again.

"But--but--D'you mean to say," he stammered, "that we shall be--at their mercy?"

"Just that," answered Lamont, who was busy lighting his pipe. "I say, Ancram, it's different here now to that day at Courtland Mere. Slightly warmer, eh?"

He took a fiendish pleasure in the situation, as the incidents of that memorable day came before him once more. Then, and since, this man had held him up as a coward, this man standing here now with the blanched face and staring eyes. Yet if ever any man was in a blue funk, that man was Ancram--here at this moment.

"Oh, come now, Lamont," objected the latter, with a forced laugh.

"You're humbugging, you know. You wouldn't be so jolly cool and contented if it was really as you say."

"As to being cool, you've got to be in these fixes. As for contented--I tell you I'm most infernally discontented. D'you think it's any fun to have my place burnt down, and all sorts of things in it for which I still have a use? Well, it isn't."

"But ourselves--our lives?" urged Ancram wonderingly.

"We're not going to lose those if we can help it. We're going to skip."

"But how? When?"

"Soon as it gets dark enough. Buck up, man. You're in luck's way.

Why, you've got here just in the nick of time to see some of the fun you were hankering after that first night you arrived."

"In luck's way! Fun!" At that moment Ancram would have given a great deal more than he had ever possessed to find himself back safe and sound within even the doubtful security afforded by Gandela.

"You remember," went on Lamont cruelly, "that night you arrived? It would be a jolly good job if we did have a war. It would be no end fun, and you'd enjoy it. Well, there's a whole heap of enjoyment sticking out for you on those terms--if we get through to-night, that is."

"What are our chances, then?"

"About one in three. Stand back. You're getting into line with that window again."

Ancram stepped aside with wondrous alacrity.

"Er--I say, can't you lend me a gun of some sort?" he said.

"A gun? Done any rifle shooting?"