“You knew? Excuse me, Mr Stapleton, but how could you know that when you were, according to your own description, hemmed in the stockade? Did they shout the news so as to frighten your men?”
The Commodore leaned across the table, and put the question, while he looked closely at his guest. Dick flushed again, for he felt ill at ease in this atmosphere of the wardroom, with officers listening so intently to his words.
“It was through an accident, you see, sir,” he said. “It happened that when the attack was made, I was out in the forest scouting for the enemy, for we had seen a small force in our neighbourhood a little time before.”
“Then you had taken precautions against attack, I imagine?” interrupted the Commodore. “You had set a watch, so as not to be taken unawares?”
“And yet they took me by surprise, sir. They came up from the other side, and as I was in the forest I did not know of their presence till I heard firing. Yes, we had taken precautions. Johnnie was on the watch at the stockade, and the men had been warned, and had been trained as to their action in case of attack. A tom-tom was beaten, and they simply ran to the stockade and banged the door. Then they peppered the enemy, with excellent results.”
“Meanwhile you were in the forest, cut off from your men?”
“Yes, sir. But I managed to creep through during the night, and, thanks to the fact that I can now understand the Ashanti tongue and speak it a little, I learned of these reinforcements on my way through.”
“And you got through without incident?”
“Hardly,” admitted Dick, telling them quietly how he had been followed, and had had to fight for his life, and how he had been rescued when on the point of being dragged away to captivity. “After that we fooled them,” he said easily. “We sent out a party to the front, the direction from which their attack had come, while we made preparations to slink off in the opposite direction. The party retired over the hill with the gold, while I went on firing for a time. We had our launch in hiding in a creek some little distance away, and we got safely aboard her and set off down the river, towing the men in a native boat. Later we paid off our men and hid the boat. Then we steamed down-stream and had the bad luck to meet with an Ashanti army. They peppered us hotly, and, in fact, nearly cut us off. There were two big war boats which were the greatest danger, and aboard one was a native with a big gun, firing a heavy bullet. He shot our tiller away at a critical moment. But we used the stoking rod, and—and here we are.”
“Quite so, Mr Stapleton, here you are,” said the Commodore, with a pleasant little smile. “But you will excuse me. As a naval officer, I would like to hear how it is that you are here at all. You had an army to contend with. They were in boats. There were two large war craft, and a man with an elephant gun, a small cannon in fact. Your tiller was shot away, and I have noticed that your funnel is perforated. Your boat is marked with slugs from bow to stern, and there are some pounds of slugs and pebbles on the decks or embedded in the woodwork. You had one stoker with you. Two for a crew to man the vessel and fight her. This requires a little more explanation.”