Eager to secure his body, the two assailants descended the remaining distance, and were stooping over the prostrate youth when Quexo appeared on the scene.
A couple of well-directed shots settled their accounts; but the mulatto, in rushing to Ellerton's assistance, failed to notice that the edge of the cliff above him swarmed with natives.
Even as he bent over the bodies of Ellerton and his assailants, a spear thrown with terrible force struck him in the back. Hardly knowing what hurt him, the mulatto sprang to his feet, and with his dying strength discharged his revolver at one of the blacks who was descending the rope, ere he fell across the bodies of the victims of his first two shots.
This episode had caused the crowd of savages, who had previously been congregating immediately above the mine, to rush to that part of the cliff nearest to the scene of the tragedy, and thus the actual explosion did not inflict very great damage upon the invaders. Nevertheless the moral result was a good service to the sore-pressed white men, for the savages refrained from renewing the attack, and withdrew to the shelter of the palm-groves.
The approach of night also prolonged the mutual cessation of hostilities, for the natives dreaded the great flashing beams of light more than anything else.
Terence, in spite of himself, fell asleep several times beside the searchlight, while Andy, weary-eyed and stricken with grief, was kept awake solely by his devotion to his wounded comrade.
Fortunately Ellerton's injuries were not so bad as Mr. McKay had at first supposed. The missile had struck him a glancing blow, and although reducing him to insensibility, was more of the nature of a cut than a contusion. There had been a copious flow of blood which relieved the pressure on the scalp that a bruise would have otherwise caused.
Before midnight Ellerton had recovered sufficiently to relate the circumstances of the affair so far as he knew, although he was ignorant of the actual ambush. Neither did Mr. McKay think fit to tell him at present of Quexo's death in his heroic and successful attempt to save his master from mutilation.
*****
With the return of daylight the savages renewed the attack. Large stones, brought to the brink of the cliff by their stupendous efforts, came crashing down upon the frail defences, till only a small section of the barricade midway between the walls of the defile remained intact.