Settlers and Scouts Part 20

"I must go to-morrow," said Mr. Halliday, "and as I shall be off before you're up in the morning I'll say good-bye now. I'll be back in a few days, and then you can all come and view our estate. It's just as well that I am going first, for we shall have to get some rooms ready for you, you know."

He shook hands all round, and left with Mr. Gillespie, who had been speaking in an undertone to his wife. Joe Browne followed them from the room.

"I say, Cousin David," he said, "what's up?"

Hesitating a moment, Mr. Halliday put John's note into his hand. Joe whistled softly.

"I'm coming," he said. "So will Poll. What time do you start?"

"My dear boy, your mother----"

"Mother's an old trump. I shall tell her the exact state of the case quietly, of course; I won't scare the girls; and she won't turn a hair.

We'll ride, I suppose? You can get us mounts, Mr. Gillespie?"

"Yes. We'll start at sunrise. You've got khaki and sun helmets?"

"Of course. We'll be ready, sir, Poll and I."

At six o'clock next morning a party of ten rode out of Nairobi. It consisted of the four men we know, with five friends of Mr. Gillespie and a Somali guide. Six were mounted on horses, the rest on mules. Two members of Mr. Gillespie's household watched them leave. One was his wife, who bid them G.o.dspeed at the door; the other was Hilda Ferrier, who had pa.s.sed a sleepless night, and looked forth from the window of her room with tired and anxious eyes.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH--An Attack in Force

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 pa.s.sed 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. .h.i.t, 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 pa.s.sed 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, unenc.u.mbered 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 plat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.sic of Mother Hubbard; all I can provide for sustenance is ca.s.sava 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 sh.o.r.e 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 antic.i.p.ated. There were several hundreds of the a.s.sailants, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 a.s.sault, 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 l.u.s.tily with their rifles.

The savages on the side where Said Mohammed had so opportunely intervened were now seen swimming to the sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.ewards, 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.