“Only one,” snapped the manager; “and the most useless one here. Now back to your place, and go on firing as the captain should, to bring down more of the miscreants and encourage our brave fellows. If you fail now I’m not able to strike, the rest will be out of heart at once.”
“You are giving me more than I can do,” half-groaned Stan. “I’m only a boy.”
“Forget that, Stan,” said his wounded comrade harshly. “I say you’re acting like a man. Now fire at that giant of a fellow standing in the gangway waving his great broad-bladed sword—”
There was the sharp crack of Stan’s rifle, and the big, showily dressed Chinaman followed the direction in which he waved the sword—that is, shoreward—and literally dived off the junk into the river, to be seen no more by those in the bastion.
“Well done—for a boy!” cried Blunt mockingly as he passed his left hand over his streaming brow. “I only hope every man at the back and right and left is doing as well. Mind when you retreat that the doors are well barricaded.—Reloaded?”
“Yes,” cried Stan, who felt as if his companion’s words were goading him to act in a way contrary to his nature, and without further urging he fired again and again.
“Good—good!” panted Blunt. “I daren’t turn to look back, because I should expose myself—and I know that if I stirred I should faint—but tell me, how are the fellows behaving?”
“Keeping up a steady fire, just as you told them. I can see the poor wretches falling killed or wounded. There goes another into the river.”
“Hah!” sighed Blunt. “I can’t tell the difference between their firing and ours. It seemed, though, as if our fire was dropping off.”
“It isn’t that,” said Stan, passing his reloaded rifle into his left hand so as in turn to wipe his streaming face with his right, quite unconscious of the fact that he had covered it with the wet, black, exploded powder fresh from the breech of his piece and his used cartridges, and now leaving a broad black smudge across his forehead and down each cheek—“it isn’t that. I’m sure our men are firing splendidly, but the enemy are using their clumsy pieces now from the junks.”