“Yes, that’s it,” said Blunt slowly. “But what are they doing now? I can’t see for this cloud of smoke.”
“Getting the junks closer in with poles. They’re going to leap ashore, I think, and make a rush.—But there is no cloud,” he muttered to himself; “the wind is driving it away.”
“Be ready, then,” said Blunt. “Fire once more right into the thick of them, reload—and—then be ready—to sound retreat—to—sound—”
Stan took a quick aim, fired, threw open the breech of his piece with his fingers trembling, and then closed it again, using stern resolution to carry out his orders, though all the time he felt sure that Blunt was as he found him when he looked round—that is to say, lying motionless on the floor of the bastion, but with his fingers still crooked in the cord of the bale.
“It must be nearly time,” groaned Stan to himself, as he felt half-stunned for the moment.
But a moment only. The next he was grinding his teeth as he again passed his rifle into his left hand to feel for his knife with the right, take it out, and open the blade.
For he foresaw a terrible difficulty as he glanced first at Blunt’s hand still clinging to the cord, and in dread lest the desperate clutch might prove a hindrance, he bent down and, as quickly as he could, sawed through the tightly strained cord, which quivered and then, as the last strand was severed, sprang apart with a sharp crack, springing out of the wounded man’s fingers and leaving the arm free to fall across his breast.
Stan sighed as he replaced the knife and turned to fire once more; but he saw at once that if the retreat was to be made and a fatal hand-to-hand conflict, which could only terminate in their all being borne down, avoided, the signal must be given at once.
The time had come. In fact, as he placed the whistle to his lips he felt that the call had been deferred too long, for there was a furious yelling, accompanied by a deafening beating of gongs, and with a roar a human torrent came pouring out of the gangways and off the sides of the two nearest junks; while the crews of two more, which were interlocked with their companions, rushed on to the nearer decks to cross and supplement the attack.
“They’ll never hear it!” thought Stan as he blew with all his might, just as every holder of a rifle was making it spit its deadly cones of lead right into the thick of the enemy’s advance.