A moment later a distant, muttering growl told them that the Allies were answering the fire, while, had there been any doubt, a peculiar shriek overhead, which all had heard before, and the fall of a wall close at hand, told them that a shell from the far-off guns had found a mark.
“Blow me!” exclaimed Tony excitedly. “Supposing one of them shells found its way in here!”
“What, yer ain’t afraid!” jeered a big rifleman who was amongst the prisoners. “You ’as helped to save the colours, too!”
“Afraid! Booby! I’ll punch yer head if yer don’t mind what yer saying,” retorted Tony hotly. “It ain’t that I was thinking of, but of trying to get out of this. Supposing a hole got knocked in the wall, couldn’t we chaps climb through it, and shy bricks at the sentries. Then we’d make a rush for it. You may bet all these Russian soldiers are busy in the forts.”
A grunt of assent went round the gathered prisoners, and far from being nervous or anxious lest a shell should knock the house about their ears, they sat there longing to hear the crash and make a dash for liberty.
That such an eventuality might occur had evidently struck the Russians, for that night the doors of the prison were thrown open, and the prisoners ordered out with their blankets. Then they were marched under a strong guard to the harbour and ferried across.
“Where do we go?” Phil asked the soldier who sat in the boat by his side.
“That you will see,” was the gruff reply. “But you leave the Crimea at once, and I do not envy you your long march. It is fine weather now, but as you get north you will meet the rains and cold winds, and you will wish yourself back in Sebastopol.”
Arrived on the northern bank of the harbour, the prisoners were grouped together, and a meal of hot coffee and bread given them. Then they set out, two ranks of armed guards marching on either side, while some twenty fierce-looking Cossacks hovered here and there, only too ready and willing to transfix any man sufficiently foolhardy to attempt an escape.
“This won’t do,” muttered Phil, whose wits had been at work. “It won’t do,” he repeated almost unconsciously.