“Let us down!” screamed Sin Foo piteously. “This is inhuman. Kill yourselves if you will, but you have no right to destroy us with you.”
“If we go up in the air on the wave of a powder explosion, then your crowd goes, too,” Dave roared back at him. “You shall have ample taste of the cake you have stirred for us all!”
Though his excellency, the governor understood no English, he appeared to have only too clear an idea of what was now going on. Howling, and nearly collapsing with terror, he endeavored to slip down from the roof of the magazine, but ready American hands thrust him back.
Sin Foo, too, made desperate efforts to slip down. As for “Burnt-face,” that yellow scoundrel had fainted, and now lay prone on the roof.
“This outrage shall not be!” screamed Sin Foo.
“You’ll soon know all about that,” retorted Sampson gruffly, hurling the under secretary on his back on top of the magazine.
From the south rampart now came furious sounds of hand-to-hand conflict. Looking up, Dave Darrin saw that his own fighting men were all but surrounded by yellow fiends who had gained the rampart by means of ladders.
Pausing only a second to kiss his wife, Dave darted toward the nearest steps to that rampart, bounding up, sword in one hand, revolver in the other.
In the fleeting instant of turning after kissing his wife farewell, Darrin had shouted to Seaman Sampson:
“My man, I trust to your sand and judgment. Don’t wait for my order, but fire the magazine trail the instant you think it is the only course left.”