“I’m afraid they will think that they would have done better in leaving us,” said the doctor gloomily, “for I don’t mean them to win the day if I can help it.”
I could not help staring at the doctor: his face looked so stern and strange till, catching my eye, he smiled in his old way, and held out his hand.
“We shall beat them off, Joe,” he said gently. “I would have avoided it if I could, but it has become a work of necessity, and we must fight for our lives. Be careful,” he added sternly. “It is no time for trifling. Remember your father, and the mother who is waiting for you at home. Joe, my boy, it is a fight for life, and you must make every shot tell.”
For the moment I felt chilled with horror; and a sensation of dread seemed to paralyse me. Then came the reaction, with the thought that if I did not act like a man I should never see those I loved again. This, too, was supplemented, as it were, by that spirit of what the French call camaraderie, that spirit which makes one forget self; and thinking that I had to defend my two companions from the enemy I raised the barrel of my piece upon the low breastwork, ready to fire on the first enemy who should approach.
“Look,” said Ti-hi just then, for he was picking up scraps of our tongue; and following his pointing finger I made out the black bodies of several savages creeping to posts of vantage from whence they would be able to shoot.
“Take care,” said the doctor sternly, as an arrow nearly grazed my ear. “If one of those arrows gives ever so slight a wound it may prove fatal, my lad; don’t expose yourself in the least. Ah! the game must begin in earnest,” he said partly under his breath.
As he spoke he took aim at a man who was climbing from rock to rock to gain the spot from which the other had been dislodged. Then there was a puff of white smoke, a roar that reverberated amongst the rocks, and the poor wretch seemed to drop out of sight.
The doctor’s face looked tight and drawn as he reloaded, and for a moment I felt horrified; but then, seeing a great brawny black fellow raise himself up to draw his bow and shoot at the part where Jack Penny was crouching, and each time seem to send his arrow more close to my companion, I felt suddenly as if an angry wave were sweeping over my spirit, and lay there scowling at the man.
He rose up again, and there was a whizz and a crack that startled me.
“I say,” drawled Jack Penny, “mind what you’re after. You’ll hit some one directly.”