“You got near enough to see?”
“I couldn’t see much, sir; but I could hear. They seemed to spread right across from the side I was on.”
“Here, you, Moray,” said the Colonel, turning to me, for at this announcement I had stood fast. “Get back to your post; and I beg your pardon.—Yes; who are you?”—for another scout came in to endorse the words of the first. He had scouted down the other side of the widening pass, and according to his report the enemy could not be a quarter of a mile away.
“Thank goodness!” said the Colonel fervently. “Mr Moray, I spoke in haste and disappointment. Now then, gentlemen, perfect silence, please. I believe we shall hear some signal from below, and that is what the party above are waiting for. Then they will attack simultaneously, to give us a surprise, and we’re going to surprise them. Every one to his post, please; and then, at their first rush, let it be volleys and slow falling back, so as to keep them from breaking our too open formation.”
The next minute every man was in his place, and the pass so dark and still that it was impossible to believe that a terrible conflict was so close at hand. As I stood waiting and listening for the enemy’s order to attack, I could feel my heart go throb, throb, throb, throb, so hard that I seemed to be hearing it at the same time making a dull echo in my brain.
Still there was no sign; and at last I began to go over my brief interview with the Colonel, and to wonder whether he would turn now upon the two scouts and charge them with having deceived themselves, for according to their report the enemy ought to have been upon us long before. I had got to this point when all at once I felt an arm upon my shoulder, and could just make out at the side and front of my face a big hand pointing forward towards the stones a hundred feet away.
“Um!” whispered Joeboy, with his lips close to my ear. “See um now. Big lots.”
“I can see nothing,” I whispered.
“Joeboy can. Lie down ready. Boss Val going to shoot?”
“When I get the order,” I said softly, and my heart beat more heavily than ever, for I felt now that the black must be right. I had had for years past proofs of the wonderful power of his sight, and had not a doubt that, though they were invisible to me, a large body of the enemy were clustering among the stones ready for the assault upon our position.