Murray was silent.
“Why, I say, sir, you’d ha’ tapped one on ’em pretty hard on the head if you’d ha’ seen him coming at me; now wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I should,” said Murray, with something like a sigh. “Look here, Tom,” he added hastily, “we have too many holes to keep closed. I want some of the pieces of furniture crammed into these places. It ought to have been done before.”
“It was done, sir,” grumbled the man. “That’s what the first luff said, sir, and we’ve been doing nothing else; but as fast as we stopped up the beggars kep’ on shoving the stuff out again with bamboos.”
The high narrow window was, however, once more pretty securely blocked, and for many hours to come the defenders of the place had their work cut out to repel the attacks that were made, the two blacks proving invaluable in keeping up a supply of water to drench the woodwork that the enemy attacked with fire, so that pretty well a day had glided by without much change having taken place.
It was evident that the slaving chief had a strong force at his disposal in carrying on a desultory kind of siege of the plantation house, while at the same time it seemed to the besieged that a sort of running fight was being carried on with the Seafowl, whose guns were heard pretty constantly, though during the afternoon that followed Murray’s arrival at the plantation it seemed that the brig must have followed the slaving craft to the opposite side of the island, where firing was still going on.
During a lull in the attack upon the planter’s house, Lieutenant Anderson busily inspected his defences, and, like a prudent officer, saw to his supplies and examined as to whether he could not take further measures for their protection and the setting at defiance of the enemy for some time to come.
“He ought to have driven us out or taken us prisoners hours ago, Mr Murray,” he said, “for he has five times our force.”
“Yes, sir; he seems to have,” replied Murray.
“And yet we have managed to keep him at bay. He has the advantage of being able to set scores of blacks to work fetching fuel to try and burn us out, bringing up provisions, doing everything but fight—they are of no use for that—while we have only two of the dark-skinned fellows; but I must say those two have proved to be invaluable.”