Suspicious of his man, and knowing him to be no more than stunned, the captain had him handcuffed and locked up in one of the inner rooms of the fort.
When the wounded had been attended to they were left in the guardroom, and the little garrison retired once more within the fort.
The enemy had had such a thorough beating that Barclay did not expect another attack. For all that, he was taking no risks.
Just before daybreak, when the world was a place of curling white mist and greyness, there came a stampede of horses. And, above the thunder of hoofs, the wild Mohammedan war-cry.
"Deen! Deen Muhammed!"
That wild swoop and yell was the Sultan's usual way of attacking.
"It seems we didn't get our man last night," Barclay remarked, as the guns were trained in the direction of the sound. "According to report, this is his usual method of attack."
Out of the greyness of approaching morning a mêlée of wild horsemen appeared. Their leader was hardly the man Barclay had pictured to himself as the blood-stained Arab chief, but a smooth-faced youth in white burnoose, mounted on a huge black stallion.
More than this Barclay did not wait to see. He opened fire on the massed horsemen, his guns playing deadly havoc. Within a few minutes their ranks broke. In wild disorder they turned and stampeded back, soon to be lost in the screening mist.
"I don't think they'll face another dose," the junior remarked.