It was answered by the shouts of the garrison and, a moment later, a score of balls composed of matting, dipped in oil or resinous gum, were thrown flaming over the palisades. These had been prepared the previous day, and the men charged with throwing them had each an earthenware pot, containing glowing charcoal, beside them. Their light showed groups of men, twenty or thirty strong, advancing within twenty yards of the palisade.
"They are carrying trees, to batter down the stockade, Rajah!" said Harry.
Behind the carrying parties was a dense crowd of Malays, who rushed forward as soon as the fireballs fell, hurling their spears and shooting their arrows, to which the defenders replied vigorously.
"The stockade will not stand a moment against those trees," he continued. "'Tis best to call the men in, at once."
The rajah ordered the native beside him to sound his horn and, in two or three minutes, the men poured in at the entrance. As soon as the last had come in, the bamboos were put in the holes prepared for them, with some rattans twined between them. Scores of men then set to work, bringing up the earth and stones that had been piled close at hand.
In the meantime, the three hundred men on the walls kept up a shower of arrows on the enemy. The battering rams, which consisted of trees stripped of their branches, and some forty feet long and ten inches thick, did their work and, by the time the entrance was secure, the Malays poured in with exultant shouts.
A large supply of the fireballs had been placed on the platforms and, as these were lighted and thrown down, the assailants were exposed to a deadly shower of arrows as they rushed forward. At this moment the rajah's servant brought up four double-barrelled guns.
"They are loaded," the chief said, as he handed one of these to Harry.
"How long is it since they were fired?" the latter asked.
"It is three months since I last went out shooting," the rajah replied.