CHAPTER XX: THE WHITE TROOPS
Two days later Frank was awoke by a sudden yell. He leaped from his bed of boughs, seized his revolver, and rushing to the door, saw that a party of some twenty men were attacking Ammon Quatia's hut. The two guards stationed there had already been cut down. Frank shouted to his four guards and Ostik to follow him. The guards had been standing irresolute, not knowing what side to take, but the example of the young Englishman decided them. They fired their muskets into the knot of natives, and then charged sword in hand. Ostik drew the sword which he always carried and followed close to his master's heels. Frank did not fire until within two yards of the Ashantis. Then his revolver spoke out and six shots were discharged, each with deadly effect. Then, catching up a musket which had fallen from the hands of one of the men he had shot, he clubbed it and fell upon the surprised and already hesitating conspirators.
These, fortunately for Frank, had not loaded their muskets. They had intended to kill Ammon Quatia and then to disperse instantly before aid could arrive, believing that with his death the order for retreat across the Prah would at once be given. Several of them had been killed by the slugs from the muskets of Frank's guard, and his pistol had completed their confusion. The reports of the guns called up other troops, and these came rushing in on all sides. Scarcely did Frank and his followers fall upon the conspirators than they took to their heels and fled into the wood.
Ammon Quatia himself, sword in hand, had just sprung to the door of the hut prepared to sell his life dearly, when Frank's guard fired. The affair was so momentary that he had hardly time to realize what had happened before his assailants were in full flight.
“You have saved my life,” he said to Frank. “Had it not been for you I must have been killed. You shall not find me ungrateful. When I have taken Abra Crampa I will manage that you shall return to your friends. I dare not let you go openly, for the king would not forgive me, and I shall have enough to do already to pacify him when he hears how great have been our losses. But rest content. I will manage it somehow.”
An hour afterwards Ammon Quatia gave orders that the army should move to the attack of Abra Crampa. The place was held by a body of marines and sailors, a hundred West Indians, and the native troops of the king. Major Russell was in command. The village stood on rising ground, and was surrounded for a distance of a hundred and fifty yards by a clearing. Part of this consisted of patches of cultivated ground, the rest had been hastily cleared by the defenders. At the upper end stood a church, and this was converted into a stronghold. The windows were high up in the walls, and a platform had been erected inside for the sailors to fire from the windows, which were partially blocked with sandbags. The houses on the outside of the village had all been loopholed, and had been connected by breastworks of earth. Other defenses had been thrown up further back in case the outworks should be carried. The mission house in the main street and the huts which surrounded it formed, with the church, the last strongholds. For two or three days the bush round the town had swarmed with Ashantis, whose tomtoms could be heard by the garrison night and day.
Frank accompanied Ammon Quatia, and was therefore in the front, and had an opportunity of seeing how the Ashantis commence an attack. The war drums gave the signal, and when they ceased, ten thousand voices raised the war song in measured cadence. The effect was very fine, rising as it did from all parts of the forest. By this time the Ashantis had lined the whole circle of wood round the clearing. Then three regular volleys were fired, making, from the heavy charges used, a tremendous roar.
Scarcely had these ceased when the King of Abra, a splendid looking negro standing nearly six feet four in height, stepped out from behind the breastwork and shouted a taunting challenge to the Ashantis to come on. They replied with a loud yell, and with the opening of a continuous fire round the edge of the wood. On wall and roof of the village the slugs pattered thickly; but the defenders were all in shelter, and in reply, from breastwork and loophole, from the windows and roof of the church, the answering Snider bullets flew out straight and deadly. Several times Ammon Quatia tried to get his men to make a rush. The war drums beat, the great horns sounded, and the men shouted, but each time the English bullets flew so thick and deadly into the wood wherever the sound rose loudest that the Ashantis' heart failed them, and they could not be got to make the rush across the hundred yards of cleared ground.
At five o'clock the fire slackened, but shortly after dark the attack recommenced. The moon was up and full. Frank feared that the Ashantis would try and crawl a part of the distance across the clearing and then make a sudden rush; but they appeared to have no idea of a silent attack. Several times, indeed, they gathered and rushed forward in large bodies, but each time their shouting and drums gave warning to the besieged, and so tremendous a fire was opened upon them when they emerged from the shadow of the trees into the moonlight, that each time they fell back leaving the ground strewn with dead. Till midnight the attack was continued, then the Ashantis fell back to their camp.