Chapter Thirty Four.
Mrs Waybridge has an Idea.
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.