"It wasn't half a bad speculation," replied Penryhn, as Sam replaced our empties by four newly filled pewters. "Bah! a good part of our fellows couldn't find spirit enough even to run, and stood stock-still, paralyzed with fright, until they were cut down in their tracks. The rest of 'em—and the braver ones they were—set off on a jog-trot for Trinkitat, going just fast enough to afford gentle exercise to the cheerful savages, who trotted along after them and carved them up at their leisure. Ah, perhaps things weren't in a devil of a box!"
"I judge that you wasted precious little time in trying to rally your men," observed Stearns.
"On that point your judgment is very fair indeed," returned the Englishman. "Rallies aren't manufactured out of that kind of rubbish. I much sooner should have thought of attempting to catch a hurricane in a scoop-net. Perhaps if I'd been on hand at the first break I might have had a try or two at it, but it so happened that I'd been sent with a handful of native cavalry to scatter a bunch of horsemen threatening our flank. When I left the column on this errand, Baker was preparing to 'form square,' but the Mahdi's men came dancing in before he had time for the manœuvre, and when we came galloping back from our dash the fight was over; and, as I've said, fifteen minutes had been time, and ample, for the winding up of that campaign.
"It was a very rum go, and I reflected that, under all the circumstances, I might as well devote my time and attention to getting myself, with unpunctured skin, back to Trinkitat. However, I thought I'd edge in a bit towards the flying rabble, on the chance of falling in with Carroll; and so I spurred into the outskirts of the mob of fright-crazed blacks. As luck would have it, I ran upon my man almost immediately, and to my dying day I never shall forget how he was busying himself.
"You may think it absurd, but when I rode up to your countryman I found him holding by the collar an Egyptian major, whom he was spanking—yes, actually spanking!—with the flat of his sword. Affairs were at the last ditch of desperation, and every moment's delay brought death by so much the closer; and yet, for the life of me, I couldn't help laughing at the sight. The poor major was bawling and sobbing with pain and fright, while Carroll was laying it on with jolly goodwill, accompanying each whack with a burst of transatlantic profanity which, under any ordinary circumstances, would have made me shiver.
"But I hadn't any time to waste in watching performances of this sort, and so I rode up closer, yelling, 'Carroll! Carroll, old man, are you mad? You've not an instant to spare! The black devils are close upon us! Where's your horse?' Carroll gave two more resounding whacks to his captive, shook him until his teeth rattled, and then set him free, with a parting kick to speed him on his way to safety. Then he looked up at me with, 'Hello, Pen! My horse? That mud-colored major—I hope they'll lift his woolly scalp!—he shot my horse! Pulled his revolver, shut both eyes, blazed away, and hit poor old Selim. I swear, Pen, he nearly made me lose my temper!'"
"Were your native officers all as efficient as this one?" I inquired, after we had laughed a little over this piece of marksmanship.
"Why, compared with the others, he was a hero," said Penryhn, in all earnestness, "for he actually fired a shot. Most of 'em turned and ran without even stopping to pull trigger.
"But though all this now may seem funny enough in the telling, the humor of the situation wasn't quite so apparent then, for the few seconds that this little occurrence had consumed had brought danger very close to us. The half-naked Arabs had begun to carve their way right into the heart of our stampeding crowd, and from my seat in the saddle I could see them getting altogether too neighborly to suit my ideas of comfort. 'Catch hold of my stirrup,' I said to Carroll, 'and come along out of this.' He sprang towards me, but before he reached my side a great wiry savage came tearing through the mob, and with one sweep of his long sword hamstrung my horse. Probably he meant to have taken a shy next at me, but he lost the chance, for Carroll plumped a bullet into his neck, and he went tumbling down all of a heap. All that, though, was cold comfort; for there we were, on foot, and with any odds you please against our getting out of the scrape alive.
"'The game's up, old fellow,' said I, clearing myself from my struggling horse. 'Come up here to me, and so long as our ammunition lasts we'll fight it out, back to back.' Our chances seemed so desperate, you see, that I didn't give even a thought to escape. 'The hell we will!' responded Carroll, whose language somehow seemed unnecessarily lurid, 'I guess not! Pick up your heels, Pen, and make a scramble for it. We can fight just as well running as we can standing still.'