“He’s got grit, anyhow,” thought Tom. “He never said a word about his wound.”
Tom would have liked to doctor him there and then, but that was out of the question. Before the hastily struck match had died out there was a wild yell from outside as the mutineers rushed upon the place. But if they expected the stout doors to yield they were mistaken. The portals shook and swayed under the onslaught, but they held firm.
After battering furiously upon them with blood-curdling threats as to what would happen when they did get them open, the mutineers gave over their fruitless task. Apparently they retired to talk over some other plan of attack.
This looked ominous. Enraged as they were by their failure to carry the place at the first assault, it was not likely they would risk a second failure.
“I hope they don’t think of making a battering ram,” thought Tom, “they’d have those doors down in a jiffy if they did.”
For some minutes thereafter they sat in silence, listening intently for some sound which might inform them of what the mutineers intended to do next. In the meantime, the half-famished refugees munched on some rice and bread they had found spread out upon a rough table just as the Chinamen had left it, apparently.
All at once Tom heard a queer sound—a sort of scratching, scraping noise at one end of the barn. It sounded as if something were being piled against it.
What could the mutineers be doing? Tom racked his brain in vain for a solution of the queer sounds for some minutes. Then he hit upon an explanation. It was such a horrifying one that every drop of blood seemed to leave his heart at the bare idea.
It was brush that was being piled against the barn from the outside. Such a thing could have only one meaning. The mutineers meant to set the place on fire.
Rapidly he communicated his fears to the others. But before they had time to formulate any way of facing this new peril there was the quick, sharp scratch of a match outside.