“Insult yer, sir? I wouldn’t do it. How!”
“By thinking your officers want to shelter themselves behind their men. Forward, my lad, unless you find a place where we can shelter till our comrades come back.”
“There aren’t no shelter, sir, and there aren’t no more mercy for them Dwats if we gets clear of this, which I don’t think we shall. There, sir! It’s all over, I suppose. Ain’t hit, are yer?”
“No. But that volley.”
“Yes, sir, there’s any number waiting for us. Here, we must walk the gauntlet back again now. We may meet our chaps coming.”
The firing was going on along the sides of the gorge, but just then there was another crash, a regular volley, and Gedge uttered a hoarse yell of excitement.
“It’s hoo-roar, sir,” he panted, “on’y I can’t shout. That’s our reserves coming up, and firing to keep the beggars’ fire down. See, they’ve stopped now. Oh, if my rifle wasn’t slung! Look at ’em. One—two—three of the cowardly beggars scuffling up yonder like great white rabbits, and on hands and feet, too.”
Crash! again. A sharp volley from much nearer, and Gedge stopped short to gaze with his companion at the three hill-men away in front, a couple or three hundred feet above the level where Bracy’s bearer stood forgetting his dangerous wound and his pangs as he felt horror-stricken at the terrible sight to his left.
There were, as Gedge said, three hill-men, crawling rapidly up a long shelf to reach a cluster of stones for shelter—a shelter they had left to get better aim at the struggling pair down below. And as the climbing Dwats were watched directly after the last volley, one who was last started up into a standing position, threw up his arms, and his long jezail fell from them down into the defile, while he balanced himself for a few moments and then dropped, turning over once, and disappearing from the watchers’ eyes. The next moment the top one came to a stand by a great stone, and rolled over and over till he reached the steep precipice, down which he plunged, the horrible thud with which he struck the stones coming plainly to Bracy’s ears.
There was still another white figure crawling up the narrow shelf, but he had stopped short; and as Bracy and his companion gazed, the poor wretch seemed to collapse and lie closer down to the rock. Just then another shot rang out, and the body gave a jerk, but did not move again.