I could hold back no longer, but started off at a run, closely followed by Morgan, so as to get to the other side and see what was going on there.
For I had suddenly grasped the meaning of the light that had puzzled me. It was plain enough now. With their customary cunning, the Indians had fired such a flight of fiery arrows that they had forced our people to combine their forces to put out the blazing side of the block-house, and then combining their own forces, the enemy had sent low down on the opposite side, after creeping close in, a tremendous discharge, which at once took hold, and the flames as I got round were already running up the building, fanned by the wind which seemed to be rising, and there was a fluttering roar which sounded like the triumphant utterances of the flames.
“That comes of using pine-logs,” said Morgan, in a low voice, as amidst the shouting of orders, the tramp of men, and the hissing of the fire, volley after volley was fired from the palisades; but naturally these shots sent forth into the darkness were aimless, and in imagination I could see the enemy, after sending in their arrows, crawling away unhurt.
The progress of this last fire was rapid. Something was done to check it at first with the buckets, and the brave fellows on the roof made desperate efforts by hanging the saturated blankets over the side, but they were soon driven back by the heat and smoke; all but one, whom I saw—after working desperately, the leader evidently of the shadowy-looking, blackened band—topple forward and fall into the flames at the foot, just as a herculean black approached, bearing two buckets of water.
Then there was a rush, a deal of confusion and shouting; and as I neared I saw the black coming through the crowd bearing some one on his shoulder.
I needed no telling that the slave, whoever he was, had dashed in and dragged the fallen man away, and, roused to enthusiasm by the daring act, I was approaching the group, when I heard murmurs running from one to the other of the line of men we had approached, men whose duty it had been to pass water from the well to those whose task it was to scatter the fluid on the flames.
“What—what did they say, Morgan?” I whispered.
“Water’s give out, sir.”
“What! Just as it is needed most?”
“Ay, my lad, that’s just when it would be sure to go. They’ve been too generous with it t’other side.”