Rujub, the Juggler Part 37

"I am not making fun of him, Miss Hannay. I am pitying him."

"It did not sound like it," Isobel said. "I don't think you can understand it, Captain Forster; it must be terrible to be like that."

"I quite agree with you there. I know I should drown myself or put a bullet through my head if I could not show ordinary courage with a lot of ladies going on working quietly round me."

"You must remember that Mr. Bathurst showed plenty of courage in going out among the mutineers last night."

"Yes, he did that very well; but you see, he talks the language so thoroughly that, as he said himself, there was very little risk in it."

"I don't like you to talk so, Captain Forster," Isobel said quietly. "I do not see much of Mr. Bathurst. I have not spoken to him half a dozen times in the last month; but both my uncle and Dr. Wade have a high opinion of him, and do not consider that he should be personally blamed for being nervous under fire. I feel very sorry for him, and would much rather that you did not make remarks like that about him. We have all our weak points, and, no doubt, many of them are a good deal worse than a mere want of nerve."

"Your commands shall be obeyed, Miss Hannay. I did not know that Bathurst was a protege of the Major's as well as of the estimable Doctor, or I would have said nothing against him."

"I don't think Mr. Bathurst is the sort of man to be anyone's protege, Captain Forster," Isobel said coldly. "However, I think we had better change the subject."

This Captain Forster did easily and adroitly. He had no special feeling against Bathurst save a contempt for his weakness; and as he had met him but once or twice at the Major's since he came to the station, he had not thought of him in the light of a rival.

Just as dinner was over Richards and one of the civilians came down from the terrace.

"I think that there is something up, Major. I can hear noises somewhere near where Mr. Hunter's bungalow was."

"What sort of noises, Richards?"

"There is a sort of murmur, as if there were a good many men there."

"Well, gentlemen, we had better go to our posts," the Major said.

"Doolan, please place your watch on the platforms by the wall. I will take my party up onto the terrace. Doctor, will you bring up some of those rockets you made the other day? We must try and find out what they are doing."

As soon as he gained the terrace with his party, the Major requested everyone to remain perfectly still, and going forward to the parapet listened intently. In three or four minutes he returned to the others.

"There is a considerable body of men at work there," he said. "I can hear m.u.f.fled sounds like digging, and once or twice a sharp click, as if a spade struck a stone. I am very much afraid they are throwing up a battery there. I was in hopes they would have begun in the open, because we could have commanded the approaches; but if they begin among the trees, they can come in and out without our seeing them, and bring up their guns by the road without our being able to interfere with them.

Mr. Bathurst, will you take down word to Captain Doolan to put his men on the platforms on that side. Tell him that I am going to throw up a rocket, as I believe they are erecting a battery near Hunter's bungalow, and that his men are to be ready to give them a volley if they can make them out. Tell them not to expose themselves too much; for if they really are at work there no doubt they have numbers of men posted in the shrubs all about to keep down our fire. Now, gentlemen, we will all lie down by the parapet. Take those spare rifles, and fire as quickly as you can while the light of the rocket lasts. Now, Mr. Wilson, we will get you to send them up. The rest of you had better get in the corner and stoop down behind the sandbags; you can lay your rifles on them, so as to be able to fire as soon as you have lit the second rocket."

The Doctor soon came up with the rockets; he had made three dozen the week before, and a number of blue lights, for the special purpose of detecting any movement that the enemy might make at night.

"I will fire them myself," he said, as Wilson offered to take them. "I have had charge of the fireworks in a score of fetes and that sort of thing, and am a pretty good hand at it. There, we will lean them against the sandbags. That is about it. Now, are you all ready, Major?"

"All ready!" replied the Major.

The Doctor placed the end of his lighted cheroot against the touch paper, there was a momentary pause, then a rushing sound, and the rocket soared high in the air, and then burst, throwing out four or five white fireb.a.l.l.s, which lit up clearly the spot they were watching.

"There they are!" the Major exclaimed; "just to the right of the bungalow; there are scores of them."

The rifles, both from the terrace and the platforms below, cracked out in rapid succession, and another rocket flew up into the air and burst.

Before its light had faded out, each of the defenders had fired his four shots. Shouts and cries from the direction in which they fired showed that many of the bullets had told, whilst almost immediately a sharp fire broke out from the bushes round them.

"Don't mind the fellows in the shrubs," the Major said, "but keep up your fire on the battery. We know its exact position now, though we cannot actually make them out."

"Let them wait while I go down and get a bit of phosphorus," the Doctor said. "I have some in the surgery. They will only throw away their fire in the dark without it."

He soon returned, and when all the fore and back sights had been rubbed by the phosphorus the firing recommenced, and the Doctor sent Wilson down with the phosphorus to the men on the platforms facing the threatened point.

Bathurst was returning, after having given the message to Captain Doolan, when Mrs. Hunter met him in the pa.s.sage. She put her hand kindly on his shoulder.

"Now, Mr. Bathurst, if you will take my advice you will remain quietly here. The Doctor tells me they are going to open fire, and it is not the least use your going there exposing yourself to be shot when you know that you will be of no use. You showed us yesterday that you could be of use in other ways, and I have no doubt you will have opportunities of doing so again. I can a.s.sure you none of us will think any the worse of you for not being able to struggle against a nervous affliction that gives you infinite pain. If they were attacking it would be different; I know you would be wanting to take your share then."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hunter," he said, "but I must go up. I grant that I shall be of no use, but at least I will take any chance that the others run of being shot. A man does not flinch from a painful operation, and, whatever the pain, it has to be faced. I may get used to it in time; but whether I do or not I must go through it, though I do not say it doesn't hurt."

At this moment the rattle of musketry broke out above. Bathurst gave a violent start, and a low cry as of pain; then he rushed past Mrs. Hunter and up the staircase to the terrace, when he staggered rather than walked forward to the parapet, and threw himself down beside two figures who were in the act of firing.

"Is that you, Bathurst?" the Major's voice asked. "Mind, man, don't lift your head above the sandbags in that way. There, you had best lie quiet; the natives have no idea of attacking, and it is of no use throwing away valuable ammunition by firing unless your hand is steady."

But Bathurst did not hear, and remained with his head above the line of sandbags until the Major put his hand on his shoulder and forced him down. He might have put his hands over his ears to deaden the sound--for in the darkness no one would have seen the action--but he would not do so, but with clenched teeth and quivering nerves lay there until the Major said, "I fancy we have stopped them working. Now, Doctor, do you, Hunter, Bathurst, and Farquharson go and lie down for four hours, when I will send for you to take our places. Before you lie down will you tell Doolan to send half his party in? Of course you will lie down in your clothes, ready to fall in at your posts at a moment's notice."

"Let me send another rocket up first, Major, to see what they are doing.

We can sleep tomorrow in the daytime; they won't dare to work under our fire then. Now, get ready, gentlemen, and don't throw away a shot, if they are still working there."

The light of the rocket showed that there were now no natives at the spot where they had been seen at work.

"I thought it would be too hot for them, Major, at such close quarters as these. We must have played the mischief with them."

"All the better, Doctor; we will send a few shots there occasionally to show them we have not forgotten them. But the princ.i.p.al thing will be to keep our ears open to see that they don't bring up ladders and try a rush."

"I think there is no fear of that tonight, Major. They would not have set to work at the battery if they had any idea of trying to scale the wall with ladders. That will come later on; but I don't think you will be troubled any more tonight, except by these fellows firing away from the bushes, and I should think they would get tired of wasting their ammunition soon. It is fortunate we brought all the spare ammunition in here."

"Yes, they only had ten rounds of ball cartridge, and that must be nearly used up by this time. They will have to make up their cartridges in future, and cast their bullets, unless they can get a supply from some of the other mutineers."

"Well, you will send for us in four hours, Major?"

"You need not be afraid of my forgetting."

Dawn was just breaking when the relief were called up; the firing had died away, and all was quiet.

"You will take command here, Rintoul," the Major said. "I should keep Farquharson up here, if I were you, and leave the Doctor and Bathurst to look after things in general. I think, Doctor, it would be as well if we appointed Bathurst in charge of the general arrangements of the house.

We have a good amount of stores, but the servants will waste them if they are not looked after. I should put them on rations, Bathurst; and there might be regular rations of things served out for us too; then it would fall in your province to see that the syces water and feed the horses. You will examine the well regularly, and note whether there is any change in the look of the water. I think you will find plenty to do."

"Thank you, Major," Bathurst said. "I appreciate your kindness, and for the present, at any rate, will gladly undertake the work of looking after the stores and servants; but there is one thing I have been thinking of, and which I should like to speak to you about at once, if you could spare a minute or two before you turn in."

"What is that, Bathurst?"

"I think that we are agreed, Major, that though we may hold this place for a time, sooner or later we must either surrender or the place be carried by storm."

Major Hannay nodded.

"That is what it must come to, Bathurst. If they will at last grant us terms, well and good; if not, we must either try to escape or die fighting."

"It is about the escape I have been thinking, Major; as our position grows more and more desperate they will close round us, and although we might have possibly got through last night, our chances of doing so when they have once broken into the inclosure and begin to attack the house itself are very slight. A few of us who can speak the language well might possibly in disguise get away, but it would be impossible for the bulk of us to do so."