“Mr. Hume,” she said, forcing her parched lips to utter the words, “don’t you think the lamp might be lit now? It cannot make much difference. We are nearing the end.”
For reply Hume struck a match, and applied it to the wick. The comfortable and spacious room suddenly assumed its familiar guise. It looked quiet and home–like. The turmoil raging beneath seemed to be absurdly incongruous—a horrible dream rather than a dread reality.
Yet the lamp was hardly well alight ere Warden’s voice came from the veranda.
“Open the door, Hume!” he cried. “Colville is wounded!”
Evelyn, owing to her nearness, flung wide the door before the missionary could reach it. Warden stood there, ghastly to behold, but still apparently free from any grave injury. His left arm encircled Colville’s limp body, and in his right hand was a gun–barrel from which the stock had been broken off. In his Arab costume, travel–soiled and blood–stained, he looked the incarnation of fearsome war, while the seemingly lifeless form he carried added a note of horror to his appalling aspect.
But when he saw Evelyn he actually smiled. She caught the tender look in his eyes through the mask of blood and dirt and perspiration.
“I fear it is all up with us, sweetheart,” he said. “I don’t think Colville is dead, but it is only a matter of seconds for him and the rest of us. Have you a revolver? Give me that lamp. It may help a little. Under this low roof we cannot distinguish friend from foe.”
He spoke so gently, with such well–balanced modulation, that he might have been standing at the door of some peaceful villa overlooking the Thames, with no more serious purport in his words than to light the way for a guest. But a rush and a furious melee on the stairs showed what manner of guest might be expected, and that ominous question anent a revolver was not lost on Evelyn. Hume took Colville into his arms, and Warden, without waiting for the lamp, turned to reinforce the five men who now held the enemy at bay.
The girl, with a Berserk courage worthy of her ancestry, snatched up the lamp and ran with it to the veranda. Attached to a pillar at the head of the stairs was a bracket on which a light was placed each night in the rainy season to attract the insects that would otherwise invade the house. She put the lamp there, and stole one awestricken glance at the furious conflict raging on both sides of the lower landing. A bullet, fired from a muzzle–loader, sang past her face. She almost wished that a truer aim had found heart or brain, because then she would be spared the affrighting alternative suggested by Warden. If she did not die by her own hand, would the men of Oku kill her? She feared they would not!
For an instant the rays of the lamp enabled the defense to beat back the first surge of what must surely be the final and successful assault. A gigantic native, whom she did not know—but who was swinging an adze in fine style by Warden’s side, turned and gazed at her. It was Beni Kalli, Warden’s negro companion in the escape from Lektawa, and now his most devoted henchman. He had seldom seen a white woman, and never one in any way resembling Evelyn. To his untutored mind, she was a spirit.