“Yes!” cried the bearer of the case and the most dire news that could be carried to men in so sore a strait—treachery. “The trap-door was thrown back, and some cursed scoundrel had emptied a bucket into the open chest. Look! The cases are saturated. I had to pour a gallon of water out into the iron bucket that was standing just below.”
Stan’s jaw dropped, and he stared for a moment or two helplessly at Lawrence.
The cry of “Cartridges—this way!” brought him back to himself.
“Patience!” he shouted as loudly as he could, and throwing open the breech of his rifle, he took out the full cartridge waiting to be fired and replaced it in his bandolier. Then, to break open one of the little packets in which the contents of the fresh case were wrapped, he snapped the string and tore off the sodden paper, which, as he crushed it in his hand and then dropped it, fell with a soft dab on the floor.
The next instant he had placed one of the new cartridges in the chamber of his rifle, closed the breech, turned, took aim at once at the most active of the jingal bearers, and drew trigger.
Click!
Just the falling of the hammer, and nothing more.
“That is the last case,” said Stan softly, and without showing the slightest emotion, as he merely withdrew the little cylinder, to whose detonator the water had evidently penetrated, though part of the powder might still have remained unspoiled.
“Yes, sir, the very last. What’s to be done now?”
“One moment,” said Stan quietly as he once more put in the dry cartridge from his bandolier. “Just you try one from another packet,” he whispered.—“Halt!” he shouted down the room. “Cease firing.—Now try one.”