"Well?" inquired he coldly of the gasping terrified wretch.
When he could do so, Augustus sobbed out his tale.
"Bugler, sound the alarm!" said the officer. "Sergeant of the Guard put this man in the guard-room and keep him under arrest until he is sent for," and, night-glasses in hand, he climbed one of the ladders leading to the platform erected a few feet below the top of the well-loopholed wall, just as a shot was fired and followed by others in rapid succession on the hill whence Grobble had fled.
The shot was fired by Corporal Horace Faggit and so were the next four as he rapidly emptied his magazine at the swiftly charging Pathans who rose out of the earth on his first shot at the man he had seen wriggling to the cover of a stone. As he fired and shouted, the picket-sentry did the same, and, within a minute of Horace's first shot, ten rifles were levelled at the spot where the rushing silent fiends had disappeared. Within thirty yards of them were at least half a dozen men—and not a glimpse of one to be seen.
"I got one, fer keeps, any'ow," said Horace in the silence that followed the brief racket; "I see 'im drop 'is knife an' fall back'ards…."
Perfect silence—and then … bang … and a man standing beside
Horace grunted, coughed, and scuffled on the ground.
"Get down! Get down! You fools," cried Horace, who was himself standing up. "Wha's the good of a square sungar if you stands up in it? All magazines charged? It's magazine-fire if there's a rush."….
Silence.
"Fire at the next flash, all of yer," he said, "an' look out fer a rush." Adding, "Bli' me—'ark at 'em dahn below," as a burst of fire and a pandemonium of yells broke out.
A yellow glare lit the scene, flickered on the sky, and even gave sufficient light to the picket on the hill-top to see a wave of wild, white-clad, knife-brandishing figures surge over the edge of the hill and bear down upon them, to be joined, as they passed, by those who had sunk behind stones at the picket's first fire.