Long Odds

by Harold Bindloss

Once more vague, shadowy objects flitted out of the bush, and swept towards the stockade. They ran without order, furiously, while more of their comrades emerged from the shadows behind them, until the narrow strip of cleared space was filled with running figures. There appeared to be swarms of them, and Ormsgill held his breath as he watched. He saw them plunge into a crawling trail of low lying mist, that seemed torn apart suddenly when once more the face of the stockade was streaked with little spurts of flame. It closed on them again until all was hidden but the intermittent flashing, and the jarring thud of the machine gun rent the din. One could not tell what was going on, and it was by a tense effort Ormsgill held himself still with every nerve in him quivering. How long the tension lasted he did not know, but at length the ringing of the rifles died away again, and as a little puff of chilly breeze rolled the haze aside it became evident that the space before the stockade was once more empty. He could see the stockade clearly, and the edge of the forest now cut sharply against the sky.

"The Headman can't afford to fail again," he said. "It is breaking day."

Then there was silence for a space, while the light grew clearer until the residency beyond the stockade grew into shape. A smear of pale color widened in the eastern sky, and as Ormsgill turned his eyes towards the house a limp bundle of fabric rose slowly up the lofty staff above it. It blew out once on the faint breeze, and then hung still again, but as he watched it, Ormsgill felt a little thrill run through him.

"Rather earlier than usual. Dom Erminio means to fight," he said.

Just then, however, a negro who came up gasping with haste signed to Nares. "The Headman sends for you," he said. "You are to take a message to those people yonder."

Ormsgill looked at his comrade, who smiled curiously. "Yes," he said, "I shall certainly go. Whether I am in any way responsible for all this I do not know, but I may, perhaps, save a few of them."

He raised himself somewhat stiffly, and turned away, but two negroes held Ormsgill fast when he would have gone with him. He sat down again when they relaxed their grasp, and at last saw Nares appear again on the edge of the bush some distance away. He was alone, and walked quietly towards the stockade with his wide hat in his hand, and a figure in white uniform appeared in the notch where the palisades had been cut down for the quick-firing gun. Just then a ray of brightness struck along the trampled sand, and Ormsgill saw his comrade stop and stand still, spare and gaunt and ragged, with the widening sunlight full upon him. What was said he did not know, but he did not blame Dom Erminio afterwards for what followed. Perhaps, some black soldier's over-taxed nerve gave way, or the man had flung off all restraint and gone back to his primitive savagery, for a rifle flashed behind the stockade, and Nares staggered, recovered his balance, and collapsed into a blurred huddle of white garments on the trampled sand.

Then as Ormsgill sprang to his feet the bush rang with a yell, and a swarm of half-naked negroes poured tumultuously out of it. There was no firing among them. They ran forward with glinting matchets and spears and brandished flintlock guns, and Ormsgill knew that now, at least, they would certainly get in. In another moment he was running furiously towards them, and so far as he could remember afterwards none of the men in whose charge he had been troubled themselves about him. It was some way to the front of the stockade, and when he got there he was hemmed in by a surging crowd. There was smoke in his eyes, and a bewildering din through which he heard the thudding of the quick-firing gun, but where Nares was he did not know. He could only go forward with the press, and he ran on in a fit of hot vindictive fury.

Here and there a man about him screamed, and now and then a half-seen figure collapsed in front of him, but this time no one stopped or turned. They were all crazed with primitive passion, and were going in. Ormsgill, pressing onwards with them, saw that he had now a matchet in his hand, though he had no recollection of how it came there. Then the thudding of the gun ceased suddenly and the air was rent by a breathless gasping yell. The stockade rose right over him, and he went headlong at the gap in it from which there protruded the muzzle of the gun. Somebody behind him hurled him through the opening, and he dropped inside. As he scrambled to his feet he saw a swarm of men running towards the residency, and he went with them, partly because he wished to get there and also because those who poured through the gap behind him drove him along. He had afterwards a fancy that he saw a white man lying not far from the gun, but he could not be certain, for the negroes were thick about him, and he was not in a mood to interest himself in anything of that kind just then. He was possessed by an unreasoning fury, and an overwhelming desire to reach the men who had treacherously shot his comrade.

They came gasping to the foot of the outer stairway, and by this time Ormsgill had almost come up with the foremost of his companions. A glance showed him the barricade of bags and boxes apparently filled with soil on the veranda, and the black faces and rifle barrels above them. There seemed to be a good deal of smoke in the air, but he saw Dom Erminio standing amidst it in white uniform. He had a naked sword in his hand, and apparently saw Ormsgill, for his drawn face contorted into a very curious smile. So far as the latter could make out, he had still a handful of men under his command. Escape was out of the question. The score he had run up was a long one, and now the reckoning had come.