“Or elephants,” murmured Moses Pyne, who was more than half asleep.
The cats were indeed a great nuisance, for, not satisfied with getting on the flat roofs of the houses at nights, and keeping up a species of war-dance there, they invaded the soldiers’ quarters, upsetting things in the dark—thus demonstrating the absurdity of the proverb that cats see best in the dark—stealing whatever they could lay hold of, and inducing half-slumbering men to fling boots and shoes, or whatever came most handy, at them.
Rats also were innumerable, and, to the great surprise—not to say indignation—of the men, neither dogs nor cats paid the least attention to the rats!
After a time the storm, both of animate and inanimate nature, began to abate, and the weary overworked soldiers were dropping off to sleep when a tremendous explosion effectually roused them.
“There goes another mine!” cried Armstrong, starting up.
“It don’t require a prophet to tell us that,” growled Gaspard, as he yawned and slowly picked up his rifle.
Explosions were of quite common occurrence at that time, but had to be attended to nevertheless.
That Osman had taken advantage of the very dark night to make an earlier attack than usual was evident, for shots were fired immediately after the explosion occurred, as usual. These were replied to, but the effect of the explosion, it was supposed, must have been unusually severe, for the enemy withdrew after exchanging only a few shots.
This surmise was afterwards proved to be correct. On going to the spot the following morning, they found that at least a dozen of their foes must have been blown up, for legs and arms and other human remains were picked up in all directions. These the soldiers gathered, with the aid of the friendly natives, and burned.
No attack was made for four days after that, but then the untiring enemy became as troublesome as ever.