Chapter Nine.
An Exciting Adventure.
“Cossacks, by George! Wake up, you fellows!” shouted Phil, frantically kicking his comrades and caring little for the pain he caused, while at the same moment he saw to the loading of his Minié rifle.
“What’s up? Why are you kicking us like that?” grunted Tony, lazily sitting up on his elbow. Then, as he saw Phil’s anxious face and his preparations for defence, he sprang to his feet, and, grasping his rifle, cried, “Cossacks, is it? All round us, too, Phil. I guess we’re trapped. But we’ll make a fight of it.”
“Fight! Of course we will. Do you think them fluffy-looking beggars is going to collar us without a little shooting?” growled Sam, grimly ramming down a charge, while he gazed over the top of the ammunition-boxes at the advancing enemy.
“Are you all loaded?” asked Phil shortly. “Then creep under the cart, Sam, and fire between the spokes of the wheel. Whatever you do, though, wait till I give the word. Our rifles carry a good long way, and we’ll be able to get in a couple of volleys before they reach us.”
In a twinkling Sam had dived beneath the cart, and a “Ready, boys!” shouted in a cheery voice, which scarcely showed a trace of the excitement he felt, told Phil and Tony he was prepared for any emergency.
Seeing three heads appear above the boxes, the Cossacks at once spread out, and completely surrounded the cart. Then, without pausing in their headlong gallop, they came full tilt at it, lance heads well in advance, each with his face close to his pony’s neck, and his spurs buried in its flanks.
Phil and his friends singled out their men, and waited a few moments to get them well in range; then at the command “Fire!” from the former, three jets of smoke and flame spurted out from their rifles. Almost instantly the man at whom Phil had aimed tossed his arms into the air, and, falling heavily from his saddle, with one foot jammed in the stirrup, was dragged across the grass right up to the wall of ammunition-boxes, where the frightened animal came to a sudden halt, and having sniffed at it suspiciously, and snorted as if in disdain, lowered its head and commenced to crop the grass as if nothing out of the usual had occurred.