Two pieces of broken cord lay on the floor; two other pieces, charred at one end, were in the cookhouse.
Royce could only guess at the manner of escape. During these past days Goruba must have been patiently working his feet loose. Having freed them, he had seized the opportunity of Kulana's absence to crawl into the cook-house, burn the cord about his wrists at the fire, set fire to the food, and make his escape in the subsequent confusion.
Three or four men at the wall said that a man had suddenly and without a sound rushed from behind them, jumped on to the wall, sprung down the twelve feet to the ground outside, and dashed down the hill. They fired as soon as they recovered from their surprise. One of them was sure that he had hit the man.
"But he got away," said Royce gloomily. "And nearly all the food is destroyed." Inwardly he added: "What is to become of us all?"
CHAPTER XXVII
AN ATTACK IN FORCE
Kulana was doing his best to provide a meal—the last!—for the garrison, when Royce's thoughts were diverted from their gloomy situation by a sudden call for action.
His look-out men shouted, and rushing to the wall he saw that the great attack, which he had so long expected, was being made at last. The Tubus, dismounted, were rushing up the hill from three sides. Goruba was conspicuous at the head of the party from the north-east.
It was plain that the attack had been arranged. Probably only Goruba's absence had delayed it. The three columns were advancing in such a way that they would reach the fort at about the same moment, and a fact that for an instant struck Royce with the chill of dread was that some men in each party carried short ladders, which during these days of apparent inaction they had evidently been constructing in the woods.
The situation was one which might well cause the bravest heart to quail. The Tubus were two or three hundred in number; the garrison numbered only sixty, all suffering from the lack of sufficient food. Only fifteen had rifles; most of the Tubus carried firearms of a sort. The garrison's greatest defence was their walls, and these the enemy were coming prepared to scale.