“Stand by, now. Here they come,” warned Jekyll. “Not too soon, and fire low.”
For the line of bush was alive with gleaming forms, as fully a hundred warriors darted out, making straight for the store; not in a compact body, but in a scattered line; not erect and in bounds and leaps, but bent low and crouching behind their shields. The while those in the background now opened a tremendous fire upon the building. Fortunately, however, most of the missiles flew high.
Those within, crouching too, with their heads just above the sills of the windows, waited a moment, then, partly rising, fired upon the advancing shields at a hundred yards’ distance. Several were seen to go down. Crash! a second volley, then a third. The magazine rifles were doing their duty right nobly. At the fourth volley the charging warriors, dividing into two sections, sheered off at a tangent, and, dropping down in the grass, crawled away with the silence and rapidity of snakes, offering no mark to draw the defenders’ fire.
“Quick! To the back!” cried Jekyll. “Not all, though.”
With instinctive unanimity the little garrison divided itself. Those told off to the back of the store arrived there in time to see their enemies swarming up among the low rocky ridge which overlooked their position from the rear.
“By George! that was real strategy, covering the advance of the storming party,” said one man, who was an ex-soldier. “Looks as if there were whites among them. Dutch perhaps.”
“No fear,” returned Jekyll. “The most English-hating Dutchman this country ever produced wouldn’t turn niggers on to white men. We’d be much more likely to do it ourselves. Hallo, Selwyn! Not hurt?”
This anxiously, as the young fellow, who had been peering forth watching his chance of a shot, staggered back from the window holding his hands to his head. Then it was seen that his face was streaming with blood.
“N-no; I don’t think so,” was the answer. “A splinter, I think it is.”
“Let’s see,” said Jekyll. “Ah yes. Here you are”—exhibiting an ugly splinter of wood, which he had simultaneously extracted from the other’s forehead. “Only a skin-wound. You’re in luck.”