What new horror was this? Was it some fresh act of devilry on the part of his tormentor that he should be brought to this ghastly place in the dead of night; and, when he should reach it—what then? To this thought, however, again succeeded reassurance. In that event he would not have been unbound. Then happened that which was more reassuring still. Something was thrust into his hand, something hard and cold. Great heavens! it was a revolver. He was armed now, and with the thought his broken spirits left him. He was armed, and free. But through what agency—and to whom the debt?
The guiding hand now had brought him to a standstill. Listening intently, his ears detected the very same sounds which had alarmed him in the darkness of the hut. Then, advancing once more, he stumbled over something, and almost fell. The trees had thinned out here, and now his eyes, accustomed to the gloom, discovered the nature of the obstruction. It was a human body, just slain, and hardly lifeless yet. Then, in a flash, something of the situation dawned upon him.
He saw now that he had arrived in front of the stockaded enclosure in which the captives had been secured. The guards had been surprised and silently slain, even as those who custodied him in the hut must have been, he decided. And—the stockade was now empty. All this he made out in the darkness; but to what end had he himself been released—released and armed? He was soon to know.
The first faint suspicion of dawn was lying upon the darkened world. Wagram made out that he was in the midst of quite a numerous band—a formidable one, too. These savages had not quite the stature and physique of his former enemies, and were less brutal-looking. They were armed in similar manner—with large spears, axes, and great crooked knives—and now by very graphic signs they proceeded to foreshow their intentions. This they did with surprising quickness and lucidity.
They were going to rush the town directly it was light enough, and put every living being within it to the spear. The white leader, especially, was to be slain, and to that end this other white man had been released and armed. The chances would be equal thus, or bettered, if anything; for they had the advantage slightly in numbers, in taking their enemies by surprise, and also in having a white man fighting on their side too. All this was explained to Wagram in less time than it has taken us to set it down, and then the whole force moved stealthily forward to take up its prearranged position.
While waiting for the signal to begin, the comic element of the situation came home to Wagram’s mind, and that comic element struck him suddenly as very comic indeed. Here was he—a man of peace if ever there was one—Wagram of Hilversea, a highly respectable country squire, whose main object in life had been effectively to steward his family possessions in such wise as to safeguard and ensure the happiness and welfare of those dependent on him—a man who had never seen a shot fired in anger nor, until he came here, a life taken—now to find himself with the honours of generalship thrust upon him without a moment’s warning—called upon to lead a pack of utterly merciless savages, of whose very numbers he had no actual idea, and not one word of whose speech he could understand—to lead them in the surprise and indiscriminate butchery of another pack of savages, if possible more bloodthirsty, and, incidentally, a fellow-countryman. Of a truth the complete topsy-turveydom of the eternal fitness of things involved by the arrangement struck him as positively Gilbertian. But there was no alternative, for, did he refuse, he knew that he himself would constitute the first victim; and he was tired of the rôle of victim; he had begun to realise that he had played it long enough. So he did not refuse; he asked, by signs, for more cartridges instead.
These, after some difficulty, were found him. The revolver was a large and thoroughly business-like weapon, but very rusty. He hoped it was in working order; and even then the worst of it was he had not had much experience of revolvers, and would have greatly preferred a double-barrelled shot gun. Then he insisted, by signs, in being further armed with one of their axes and a large knife.
He was under no hesitation as to his course. He would fight, and fight his uttermost, for the freedom which Heaven had restored to him, and, incidentally, on behalf of those who, all unconsciously, had been Heaven’s instruments in such restoration. His captivity, and the revolting circumstances and sights almost daily attendant on it, had changed him in some way—had certainly hardened him. These people, for whom and with whom he was to fight, had a cause, for as it grew lighter he recognised among them several of the captives he had seen fastened up within the stockade, while all were of the type of the man he himself had freed from the slaughter-block at the imminent risk of his own life; whereas, on the other hand, these cannibal murderers were a type of humanity of which the earth might well be rid. And the white man—his fellow-countryman, his arch-tormentor—what of him? Well, him, too, he would kill without hesitation if they met in fight; for he was far worse than the black fiends over whom he exercised ascendency. If ever a murderer deserved death it was this white renegade, who boasted that the lives which he himself had seen him take were as nothing beside those which he had taken, and that under every circumstance of more than barbarian atrocity. Yes; he would kill him in self-defence if they met.
At this tense, psychological moment this man of refinement and philanthropic instincts found time to marvel at his own complete reversion to first principles. Here, surrounded by savages, he seemed to have gone back to the savage too in the longing and eagerness for battle which had come upon him. How much more of the experience which had been his of late would suffice to turn him into as complete a savage as the renegade yonder?
Then of what followed his mind grasped but the smallest conception. A series of ear-splitting whistles, a roar and a rush, and he was within the town, borne onward with the rest. The attack was made absolutely without method or order, and no pretence to generalship. It was the onslaught of a wild animal—a surprise and a spring. He saw the black, naked, spiky-headed forms surge from the huts, to be received upon the broad spears of the assailants. In this way quite half the inhabitants were destroyed before they had time to realise that they had been attacked.