“We seem to hold our own fairly well at present,” said Mr Burgrave, as Fitz departed, and the Colonel stood looking narrowly at the threatened verandah and the scattered work-materials with which it was strewn.
“We seem to—yes, but it is simply because we have not been tried as yet. There is far too great a length of wall for us to hold against a well-planned attack—say from two sides at once. Why they haven’t put us to the test before I can’t imagine. It’s not like their usual tactics to let things drag on in this way.”
“I am of opinion that they dislike crossing the cleared space, and intend to remain at a discreet distance and starve us out. If only they stick to that, we ought to be relieved long before matters come to a crisis.”
“No, it’s not that!” cried the Colonel irritably. “There’s something behind that we don’t see. If there was any possibility of their having guns, I should say they were waiting for them. But where are they to get them from unless they have surprised Rahmat-Ullah, which we have no reason to suppose? They have some dodge on hand, though, I’m certain.”
“Is there any weak point at which they could be aiming?”
“Man, this place is nothing but weak points. If those fellows on the hill knew what they were about, they could enfilade our north and south ramparts as well as cover the eastern one. The south curtain is so weak now that an elephant or a battering-ram—let alone a well-planted shell or two—could knock it over, and the canal on that side is getting lower every day. The water-carriers have to go down a dozen steps now, and it’s only the enemy’s fear for their own precious skins that prevents their picking them off from the opposite bank. We could pepper them from the rampart, they know that, and they haven’t the sense to pour in an oblique fire from the hill. I suppose, too, it hasn’t occurred to you that if they took it into their heads to blow us up, one or two plucky fellows could get close up to the walls under cover of a general attack, and lay a train at their leisure. It’s impossible to fire transversely from the loopholes in the towers without exposing pretty nearly one’s whole body, and as to depressing a rifle and firing point-blank down from the parapet, well——”
Mr Burgrave understood the pause to mean that the consequences would probably be very uncomfortable for the holder of the rifle, and said no more. The night passed without further alarm, save that Georgia found it would be dangerous to have a light in her rooms unless door and shutters were both closed. The glimmer from the window, even when only seen through the matting curtain, attracted two or three bullets immediately, and it was evident that the choice must be made between air and light. During the hours of darkness the besieged worked hard at their defences, and succeeded in erecting a more or less effectual shelter along the inside of the east rampart, and also a sand-bag parapet at the summit of the two western towers. The gateway turrets on the north-east, which were now exposed to the fire from the hill in the rear as well as to that from General Keeling’s house in front, were strengthened in the same way. Behind these shelters the best marksmen of the garrison took up their posts, and as soon as the bullets began to fly from the hill, seized the opportunity of pointing out to the enemy that the state of things had altered to some extent in the night. Since it was impossible for a man on either side to fire without exposing himself slightly, a return shot was the instant comment on this imprudence, and hence, before the morning was over, both parties were lying low and glaring at their opponents’ sangars, ready to shoot but not caring to be shot. Helmets on the one side and turbans on the other, raised cautiously on rifle-barrels above the breastwork, drew a few shots, but the nature of the trick was quickly perceived by both parties, and the sniping continued to languish.
“Their rifles seem to carry as far as ours,” remarked Mr Burgrave to Colonel Graham.
“So they ought,” was the grim reply. “Most of them, if not all, are ours. They are stolen and smuggled wholesale into Ethiopia, and Bahram Khan has borrowed them to arm his followers with. That’s how they manage to give us so much trouble. In the matchlock days, when this place was built, we could have laughed at their shooting from the hill.”
“What is that?” said the Commissioner suddenly, putting up his eye-glass; “a pile of cannon-balls? It was not there last night.”