Motu smiled a proud, grateful sort of smile and took Mark’s hand. “What you say is good. It makes me fill with pride. I am joyful your Binney is safe, and I am joyful it was Motu who helped.”
“Now,” says Mark, “we’d better be gettin’ ready for business.”
I thought so, too. The Japs had disappeared behind the hotel. We couldn’t see what they were up to, but we knew mighty well it was something that wouldn’t be good for us.
The siege had begun.
CHAPTER XII
There didn’t seem to be much of anything for us to do but wait till the besiegers made the first move. It wasn’t as though we had a strong garrison and could make sorties. The best we could hope for was to beat off attacks. The odds weren’t so bad; five boys and a dog against five Japanese men, but the odds were on their side, I expect.
Of course they had to come to us, and they had to cross water to do it. There were three ways of coming—by swimming, which Motu said they couldn’t do; by boat, and they hadn’t any boat; or by raft, which would be easy for them to make. They might make a bridge, I suppose, and throw it across, but it didn’t seem likely. The thing we had to look out for, then, was a raft.
Both of us had good generals. I’ve seen enough of Mark Tidd in pinches to know that you can depend on his brain to do the best thing there is to do, and from what Motu said, and from what we had seen, The Man Who Will Come wasn’t to be sneezed at. If it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have had much worry. But he was a bad one!
While I was thinking about him what should he do but walk around the corner of the hotel and call over to us from his side of the moat.
“Good day to everybody,” says he.