dick selmes, who had intuitively grasped the simplicity of the tactics to be observed, was at the back of the room; not quite opposite the doorway, lest the light from without should fall upon him. the minutes of waiting were tense beyond the critical moment of any adventure which had come his way yet. and it was a time of waiting. the savages would allow time, after the removal of the light, for the occupants to retire. it would be so much easier to wreak their deed of red murder upon the slumbering and unsuspecting, and this he realised. but his pulses were throbbing, and it seemed that his own heart-beats must be audible to those outside. then he pulled himself together. a grim, satirical impulse to laughter was upon him as he thought what a deadly surprise was in store for them, and cautiously he fingered the ammunition in his pockets so as to guard against the possibility of losing precious time in trying to jam the wrong cartridges into the wrong gun. ha! now for it!
for the upper half of the door was slowly opening. a dark head and shoulders were framed within the square of comparative light from outside, then the watcher could make out that their owner was bending over to try and undo the inner fastenings of the lower half of the door. the head was well within the room; why didn’t the axe descend upon it? but elsie mcgunn had laid her plans deeper than that.
the kafir turned, and seemed to be signalling back to his fellows; then giving his attention to his own work, he straddled the lower half of the door and was within the room. but before he had time even to stand upright he fell like a log. for the axe-head had descended, catching him with a horrid crunch just where the skull joined on to the back of the neck. not a groan, not a struggle. the chief, sandili, had lost one fighting man, and that at the hand of a woman.
silence again. now another dark form filled the square, and the same inward move began, only the new-comer did not imitate his predecessor in striving to undo any fastenings. he was a gigantic, grease-smeared beast, and dick selmes could make out a glint of moonlight upon white eyeball, and a glisten on assegai blades, held in the dark cruel hand, as he made the effort of clambering over. then the downward sweep, and crunch of the weighty iron, and this one sank as silently as the first. the chief, sandili, had lost two fighting men, and that at the hand of a woman.
heavens! could this go on for ever? thought the entranced spectator, standing back in the black gloom, awaiting his turn. surely those outside would become suspicious—in popular parlance, would “smell a rat.” but he forgot that the essence of their plan was to effect an entrance one by one and in silence, and to that end they would wait until each was safely inside, and, so as not to press or hurry the foregoing one, would not wait immediately against the door. so, in a trice, a third appeared, and met with exactly the same fate. sandili, the chief, had lost three fighting men, and still at the hand of a woman.
the extraordinary dexterity and noiselessness with which each savage had been felled, had awakened no sort of suspicion among those without. but with the arrival of the fourth within the room, elsie had somehow miscalculated by ever so little, and instead of laying this one out, rigid and motionless, the heavy iron head of the axe had descended full upon the skull instead of upon the lower base thereof; consequently, although the kafir went down like a felled ox, the stroke was not sufficiently vital in its effect as to prevent him from emitting a groan, such as will sometimes proceed from a felled ox lying prone beneath the hammer. and it carried to the ears of those outside.
these were seen to start and stand stock still, as though listening intently. then massing together, they came straight for the door, at a sort of stealthy, creeping run.
“shute, lad! shute now!” whispered elsie, quickly. dick advanced a step or two, just keeping still out of sight. a sharp, detonating roar, and the heavy charge of treble a. raked the bunched-up mass. another roar, and the effect was terrific, indescribable. the ground was covered with dark, struggling forms, others staggering and tumbling over these. at such close quarters the execution done had been deadly, awful. the night air was rent with screams and yells. some, leaping up, fell immediately, even before they could carry out their intention of limping away. others lay still, as if never to move again. it seemed that there was hardly one untouched among that stricken heap.
but there was, and although the move escaped dick, a rapid signal was given. then from the further shade there rushed forth a number of dark forms, and in open line—for they had taken in the lesson and avoided massing—these spread out, so as to surround the house. but dick selmes had reloaded in a second, and now, quick to take in a favourable moment, he raked the line at such a point that three or four dropped beneath the deadly buckshot. and now the night air rang with demoniacal yells. the vengeful savages, drunk with fury, sprang round to the front of the house and swarmed up the steps of the stoep.
“go ye round to the front,” said elsie. “all keep ’em out of here.”
she had swung up her axe again. dick, in a second, had gained the front. the house, situated on a slope, was considerably higher than the level of the ground on this side, and there were no end windows. there were, however, two commanding the stoep, one on either side of the front door. it took hardly a moment to throw open one of these, and not another to rake the mass of kafirs pouring up the steps, with a charge of the deadly buckshot. yelling, struggling, such as could move, that is, they would have fallen back, but those behind prevented this. again the other barrel spoke, this time with the same effect. thoroughly demoralised now, those who could do so glided away, and sought the nearest cover. and then upon dick’s ears came a loud cry of alarm, and it came from hazel’s room.
this was at the end of the house, projecting beyond the stoep, the window looking out in front. with a bound he had gained the door, and burst it open.
hazel was standing back in a corner of the room, transfixed with terror. as a matter of fact, she had summoned up rare courage in deciding to remain quietly where she was instead of rushing out, and so, seriously to hamper and embarrass the defenders, as her natural impulse would have been. what dick now saw was a big kafir worming himself through the window, half in, half out. but, quick as thought, somebody pushed past him, and in the now flooding moonlight he saw the lift of the scotswoman’s brawny arms, and, with a crunching thud, down came the axe-head on the skull of the venturesome savage, with the same result as before.
“you’ve left your side, elsie,” he said.
“go ye back to it,” was the answer. “a’m staying here.”
there was a crisp, uncompromising decisiveness about this statement that dick well knew there would be no disputing. so he obeyed. now, through the upper half of the door, the quince hedge was visible in the moonlight, and so, apparently, was he, for now a roar of firearms broke forth from that cover, and a shower of bullets and pot-legs came rattling against the walls of the house; one indeed inside, not far, he could have sworn, from his ear.
the moon, though far from at full, threw upon the house a great deal too much light, and, on the other hand, not enough to dispel the shade of the quince hedge. to this extent the enemy had the advantage, and the flash and roar, and the vicious spit of missile on wall or roof—or a humming whistle above either, as it hurtled away harmlessly into space—was continuous. kafirs, as a rule, are execrable shots, though here and there a rare exception is to be found. such a rare exception now dick selmes began to fear was present among this crowd, for every now and then a single bullet would hum through the upper half of the door, always striking in the same place, and always when he, judging position from some recent discharge, had returned the fire, using the rifle this time.
but now that he had to play a waiting game, his blood cooled. the nights were short at this time of year. with the first light of morning their weakness would become apparent. the kafirs would find some means of rushing them. it was clear that thompson’s prediction had been verified. this was no sporadic outbreak of irresponsible savagery. the whole gaika location was up in arms, and the glow succeeding glow which he and hazel had seen earlier in the evening, was that of flaming homesteads, deserted or the reverse, which the barbarians had fired to signal their rising. as for relief from without, why, it was probable that komgha itself was threatened, or if not, to send forth a small force among thousands of savages pillaging and burning would be madness, whereas to send out a large one would be to expose the settlement itself to attack and massacre. things looked dark enough, anyway, and now the first heat and excitement of actual and active fight over, a reaction of foreboding set in upon him. a soft rustle of garments beside him in the darkness made him start.
“mr selmes. i have a plan. it might be worth trying.”
“good god, mrs waybridge, go out of here! there’s one beast who can shoot, and you’re bang in the line of fire. ah!”
with the very words a missile came humming between the two, splashing itself into the wall. dick pulled her suddenly and forcibly out of the line of the open half-door.
“this is it,” she said, as coolly as though nothing had happened. “the rockets. why not do something with the rockets?”
“the rockets! ah!”
the words escaped him with a gasp, and the explanation of the idea was this. by way of adding to their christmas festivities, now barely a week back, the waybridges had imported a big box of fireworks. but they had not been used, thanks to an opportune suggestion from harley greenoak to the effect that, in the current state of alarm, the firing off of rockets might be misunderstood and cause a scare, under the impression that they were being sent up as signals of distress. now they would come in for just that very purpose.
“the idea is splendid, mrs waybridge,” said dick. “will you get them out. i can’t leave my post.”
“i have got them out. one minute.”
she went into the other room, and immediately returned with quite a bundle of rockets, all attached ready to the sticks.
“is hazel all right?” he whispered eagerly.
“yes. elsie is watching over her. i know i would about as soon try and steal its cub from a lioness under the same circumstances,” she added, with a laugh.
“and you? you are splendidly cool and plucky. what about the children? aren’t they scared?”
“they are, of course, poor chicks. but they’ve learnt to do as they are told. they are inside—and quite quiet.”
the plan was soon formed. dick was to go outside and stick up the rockets just in front of the stoep. none of the enemy seemed to be on that side, the ground was too open and devoid of cover in the clear moonlight. the while mrs waybridge, gun in hand, would watch his present post.
“it’s done,” whispered dick, returning in a minute. “there are half a dozen of them there. but before i touch them off i’ve got a jolly little surprise for our friends yonder. now look, and you’ll see some fun.”
slightly opening one of the windows, with the aid of a chair he adjusted a rocket horizontally on the sill, in such wise as to rake the quince hedge, as near as he could judge, at the point whence the man who was a marksman had been making things lively for them. then, striking a match, and carefully shading it, he touched the fuse.
it sputtered a moment. then there was a deafening and appalling hiss, and a great fiery snake of sparks sped straight for the point designed, bursting with a crackling boom in among the quince hedge. the effect was ample. a hubbub of cries and shouts arose among the lurking savages, and immediately dick had placed another rocket into position and touched it off with similar effect. utterly panic-stricken now, the kafirs thought of nothing but wild flight, and the crashing of their demoralised retreat through the garden was the most welcome sound the beleaguered listeners had at one time ever expected to hear again. quick as thought dick slipped out to the front, and applied a light to the upright rockets, one after another. band after band of snake-red flame leapt up into the heavens, bursting with shell-like boom into beautiful blue and red and golden stars.
“there!” he said, coming back, and choking with laughter, in sheer reaction, “i believe jack kafir thinks the end of the world has come, or the police artillery—doesn’t matter which. your idea has been the saving of this camp, mrs waybridge, if he doesn’t get over his scare and come back.”
