There was no reply.
"Where's Sree?" cried Harry again.
No one had seen him since they fired the first volley, and Harry uttered a groan as he felt sure that the poor fellow must have gone down from a spear thrust.
But there was no time to think in the darkness where they were pent up. It was every man's duty to make his ammunition tell upon the seething, savage crowd athirst for their blood, and the volley firing was kept up steadily, the ammunition chests in the middle of the hall being amply supplied in readiness for such an emergency, and every window attacked had its defenders directly.
All at once Mr. Kenyon's voice was heard from above.
"Where is the King?" he cried.
"Here. Are you losing ground up there?"
"No, sir, no. My men can keep up their fire there. I came to speak to you," he said in a low voice, but it was close to where the two boys were standing, and they heard every word. "We must do our best," he said, "for the whole country seems up against us. They have cast off all concealment now, and are coming up to the gate in thousands, many of them with lanthorns at the end of their spears. Where are the home-made shells?"
"There, in a chest by themselves beneath the great table."
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Kenyon. "I am going to throw a few down from one of the upper windows. Oh, if we could have fired those mines!"