“Well done, sir. Reload quickly. They were going to rush us, and that’s taught ’em we were on the kwy wyve as the Frenchies call it.”
“Keep a sharp lookout your way,” said Cyril as he hurriedly reloaded, his fingers trembling from his excitement.
“That’s what I’m doing, sir, with my ears. I’ve been on sentry before with different kind of Indians on the lookout to bring you down with bullets. I shall hear ’em, I dessay.”
“But look here, John Manning, we’ve stopped those men from coming, and driven them back on the colonel.”
“Yes, sir, and all the worse for them, for he’s sure to hear them and be on the lookout. Strikes me that the cave swarms with Indians, and that our first job ought to be to clear the place. But look out, and don’t be in too great a hurry to shoot now, sir, because your shot ’ll bring our friends back to us. Perhaps it came in quite right, for they may have lost their way.”
Then some minutes passed, and a noise was heard which made Cyril lower his gun again, but a voice warned him that he must not fire.
“Where are you?” cried the colonel.
“Here, sir.”
“Thank goodness. We had an accident, fell over a stone, and put out the light. This place is tremendous, and we should have hardly found our way out of it, had it not been for your shot. Did you mean it as a recall?”
Cyril explained, and the colonel came to the conclusion that it was useless to explore farther, for there was room for a hundred of the enemy to hide and elude them, so vast was the number of huge blocks lying about, masses which had fallen from the roof during some convulsion of nature.