As the besieged stepped forth they presented a not unimpressive spectacle. Haggard, unshorn; hands blackened and burnt from contact with the quick-firing magazine rifles; the anxious look telling of many hours of strained vigilance; the hard set of determined faces; and the light of battle not yet gone out of their eyes—they were in keeping with the background of bullet-battered wall and the foreground of dark corpses, grim and gory, lying stark and in every variety of contorted shape, at which the Police horses were snorting and shying.
“Just in time, Overton!” said Jekyll, hailing the officer in command, who was a friend of his. “Only just in the nick of time. They had already got inside the further room. Five minutes more would have done for us.”
“You stood them off well,” returned the other, dismounting. “I never thought we’d have been any good at all; thought you’d have been knocked on the head long ago.” Then gravely, “Any—er—losses?”
“Four. One of your men. The one who warned us.”
“Robinson, wasn’t it?”—turning to a trooper, who answered in the affirmative.
“Poor chap! Hallo, Carbutt. You in it, eh?”
“Glad to be out of it, too. Have a drink, Overton. I think we all deserve one.”
Now the residue of the relieving force arrived. These were all dismounted men, prospectors mostly, who had either been warned in time or had fallen in with the Police during their flight. Nearly all were known to some one or other of the defenders of the store, and there was a great interchange of greeting, and more than one story of hairbreadth escapes, told by some, who, like these, had been succoured only in the nick of time.
“There’s going to be the devil to pay,” the police captain was saying. “The rebellion’s a general one, or precious nearly so; at any rate, in this part of the country. Zazwe’s people and Umlugula’s have risen, and Bulawayo was being laagered up for all it was worth when we left. We can’t get any news from Sikumbutana, but Madúla’s a very shaky customer, and if he joins in, then I’m afraid Inglefield and Ames will be in a bad way.”
“Roll up, boys! Roll up!” sang out Jekyll, who had gone outside. “There’s free drinks all round this morning. ‘Skoff,’ too. Help get down some of these tins.”