Again came the report of a firelock, and a volley from nearer the gate, followed by a burst of yells; and a minute later a fresh volley, and the same defiant shouting, just as if the Indians had made their attack in four different places, but had been checked by the watchfulness of our men, who had been thoroughly prepared for the attacks.
I was wondering to myself whether the Indians were in a body, and had come on in one place, and then hurried on to the others, or were in four different bodies; but my wonderings soon ceased, for I quite started at hearing a voice close to my ear.
“No got arrow ’tick in um dis time, Mass’ George. Tell um Injum coming again.”
“Where? Where?” I whispered.
“Pomp see um crawl ’long de groun’ like ’gator,” he said. “Dah—one, two, tick, nineteen, twenty.”
I gazed intently over the fence, but could only see the dark ground; but Pomp’s warning was too valuable to be trifled with. He had proved himself now, and I hurried to where my father stood ready with twenty of our men, and told him.
He gave orders, and half the men fired slowly, one after the other, the instructions being to those who held their fire, that if they could make out the bodies of the crawling Indians by the flashing of their comrades’ pieces, they were to fire too.
The rapid scattered reports were followed by a furious burst of yells; there was the rush of feet, sounds as of blows struck against the stout poles, and directly after, dimly-seen against the starlit sky, dark grotesque-looking heads appeared as at least a dozen of the Indians gained the top of the defence, but only to be beaten back by the butt-ends of the men’s fire-locks, all save two who dropped over in our midst, and fought desperately for a time before they were despatched.
As silence—an ominous silence full of danger and portent—fell upon us again here, we could tell that quite as desperate a struggle was going on at other points of the palisading. Flash was succeeded by report and yell, so loud and continuous that we knew now that the Indians were delivering their attack in four different places; and more than once I shuddered as I felt how terrible it would be should one of these bands gain an entry. I knew enough of such matters from old conversations with my father, to be able to grasp that if a party did get in over the stockade they would desperately attack one of our defending companies in the rear, and the others in response to their yells would come on at the same moment, when our numbers and discipline would be of little value in a hand-to-hand attack with the lithe savages, whose axes and knives would be deadly weapons at close quarters.
For quite half an hour the firing and yelling continued. Then it ceased as quickly as it had begun, and the Indians seemed to have retreated.