“Would you think so if they were your wives or daughters?” asked Rupert scornfully. “How could I surrender them who had eaten of my bread and salt? Also they have gone. But if you are afraid, Abdullah, do you take a camel and follow them. The rest of us will hold the pass and give you time to get away.”
Now some of the servants began to mock Abdullah and to call him “woman” and “coward.”
So the man grew ashamed and said that he would show them that he was as brave as they.
Then a rifle bullet, evidently aimed at Rupert, who was standing up to address the soldiers, whistled past his head and flattened on the rock behind. The fight had begun.
Rupert saw the man who had fired the shot from the back of his camel about two hundred yards away, for the smoke hung over him. Snatching up the Winchester repeating rifle which he carried, he set the sight rapidly, aimed and fired. He was an excellent game and target shot, nor did his skill fail him now. Almost instantly they heard the clap of a bullet and saw the Arab—it was that very sentry with whom they had spoken at the Sweet Wells—throw up his arms and pitch heavily from the saddle to the ground.
The soldiers shouted, thinking this a good omen, and at once opened fire, killing or wounding several of their enemies, whereon the Arabs hastened to take shelter, sending their horses and camels out of reach of the bullets.
The mouth of the pass was strewn with large stones, and creeping from one to another of them, the Arabs advanced slowly, pouring in a heavy fire as they came. As it chanced, this did but little damage, for Rupert’s cover was good, while as they moved forward his rifles found out several of them. Thus things went on for a full hour, till at length Rupert saw the head of a soldier near him, who had incautiously exposed himself, drop forward on to the rock. He was shot through the brain, and immediately afterwards one of his comrades, who rose to lift him, thinking that he might be only wounded, received a bullet in the shoulder.
So the fight stood for all that live-long day. No more men were hit, for after this lesson they dared not show themselves, and unless they did so, the enemy did not fire. There they lay, cramped up behind their stones and baked in the burning sun. Of food they had plenty, but as it happened the water, of which there was none here, was scarce, for they had used nearly all of it on the previous night, expecting to be able to refill their bags at a well a little further along the mountains. Although it was husbanded, soon the last drop had been drunk, so that towards evening they began to suffer from thirst.
At length the sun sank and the darkness came.