Long Odds

by Harold Bindloss

Then several rifles flashed among the bags, and the negroes went up the stairway with a yell. Ormsgill fancied that two or three men went down about him, and had a vague remembrance of trampling on yielding bodies, but he went up uninjured, and leapt up upon the barricade. The veranda was thick with smoke now, but he saw Dom Erminio suddenly lean forward with the long blade gleaming in his hand, and a black soldier who crouched close beside his feet tearing at his rifle breech. That, however, was all he saw, for in another moment he leapt down, and a swarm of half-naked men with spears and matchets swept into the veranda. What he did next he knew no more than those about him probably did, but when at length he reeled out of the smoke-filled building and down the stairway the matchet was no longer in his hand, and he wondered vaguely that there was so far as he could discover not a scratch on him. Still he felt a trifle dazed, and as his head ached intolerably he sat down gasping.

There was no firing in the residency now, and half-naked men were pouring out of it, but Ormsgill felt no desire to go back and see what had become of Dom Erminio and his soldiery. He sat still for several minutes, and then rising with an effort walked stiffly across the compound. He had some trouble in climbing the stockade, and when that was done came upon Nares lying face downwards in the trampled sand. He raised him a trifle with some difficulty, and saw a little hole in the breast of his thin jacket. Then laying him gently down again he took off his shapeless hat. He was still standing beside him vacantly when one of the Headman's messengers laid a hand on his shoulder. Ormsgill looked down once more on his comrade, and then turned away and went with the man.

CHAPTER XXIX
DOM CLEMENTE STRIKES

There was a chill in the air and the white mist crept in and out among the shadowy trunks when the foremost of the rebels went slipping and floundering down the side of a river gorge just before the dawn. Ormsgill marching, well guarded, with his carriers and the six boys he had liberated in the rear could just discern the dim figures flitting on in front of him, and wondered if the next hour would see them safely across the river. He had been subjected to no ill usage though he had been carefully watched, and he fancied that the rebel leader expected to find him useful when the time to make terms with the authorities came, but that was a point he was never quite clear about. In the meanwhile he was worn-out and badly jaded, for his leg still pained him, and the rebels had pushed on as fast as possible after the sacking of San Roque.

Ormsgill fancied he understood the reasons for this. The body was not a very strong one, and though there were petty Headmen on the inland plateau who had long cherished grievances against the white men, they were no doubt prudently waiting to see what their friends were likely to accomplish before they joined them. In an affair of that kind a prompt success counts for everything, since it brings the waverers flocking in, and while the seizing of San Roque was scarcely sufficient to do this in itself, the first of the white men's plantations was now not so very far away. There was another fact that made delay inadvisable. The river flowed rapidly between steep banks just there, and Ormsgill felt it was just the place he would have chosen had it been his business to dispute the rebels' passage. He fancied their leader was anxious to get across before the news of the fall of San Roque brought troops up from the coast.

In the meanwhile he plodded onwards wearily, aching all over and wet with the dew, while the sound of sliding water grew steadily louder. Now and then the long straggling column stopped for a minute or two, and there was a hoarse clamor which he fancied indicated that a scout had come in, but the men promptly went on again, and his guards, who carried flintlock guns, saw that he did not linger. The path grew steadily steeper, and he stumbled in loose sand while the half-seen trees went by until at last a sharp crackling mingled with the patter of naked feet as the head of the column smashed through the thick undergrowth and tall reeds in the river hollow. Then his guards made it evident that he was to stay where he was, and he sat down among his boys in the loose sand where he could look down on the men in front of him. There was now a faint light, though the mist lay in thick white belts in the hollow, and the air was very still. He could dimly see dusky figures moving amidst the grass and reeds, and here and there a faint gleam of water in front of them, while now and then a confused clamor rose out of the haze. The rebels, he fancied, were disputing about their orders, or urging some course upon their leaders, and he wondered vaguely whether they were likely to do more than involve themselves in disaster, and where Dom Clemente was.

This was, however, as he recognized, no concern of his. He was a prisoner, and he could see only difficulties in front of him. Had he been free at that moment and the boys he had liberated safely sent away, the outlook would not have been much brighter, for he would still have to face a duty he shrank from. That Ada Ratcliffe had no great love for him he now felt reasonably sure, but it was clear that she and her mother expected him to marry her, and, since she had kept faith with him, he could not break the pledge he had given her. After all, he reflected grimly, she would probably not expect too much from him, and be content with the material advantages he could offer her. Then he thought of Benicia Figuera, and set his lips tight as he once more strove to fix his attention on the men below.

At last there was a soft splashing and he could dimly see them wade into the river. Their disputes were over, and they were going across in haste. Then the foremost of them plunged into a belt of mist, and for several minutes he watched their comrades press onwards from the tall grass and reeds. The water was gleaming faintly now, and they looked like a long black snake crawling through the midst of it until the filmy haze shut them in. At times a shouting came up through the splashing and crackle of undergrowth. In the meanwhile the tail of the straggling column still winding down the side of the gorge was steadily growing plainer, and the haze commenced to slide and curl upwards in long filmy wisps, until at last Ormsgill scrambled to his feet with every nerve in him thrilling. The ringing of a bugle rose from beyond the river and was answered by another blast apparently from the rise behind him.

Then the splashing ceased suddenly, and there was for a few moments a tense and almost intolerable silence, during which he stood still with one hand clenched until a clamor rose from the midst of the river, and he heard the dull thud of a flintlock gun. It was answered by a clear ringing crash of riflery, and then while the flintlocks and Sniders joined in, thin pale flashes blazed amidst the reeds and in the sliding mist. This lasted for, perhaps, a minute or two, until it became evident that the rebels were splashing back again. Ormsgill could see them streaming out of the mist, and as he watched them another patter of riflery broke out upon the higher ground behind him. A bugle rang shrilly, and he fancied he heard a white man's voice calling in the bush. Then looking round as one of the boys touched him, he saw that his guards were no longer there. They had evidently fled and left him to shift for himself. He stood a minute considering, with the boys clamoring about him, and then made up his mind. The rebels were streaming back up the gorge, and it seemed to him just possible that if he separated himself from them he might slip away unobserved in the press of the pursuit. Once across the river he might still reach the coast.