“The women of Carthage are quite outdone,” said Mr Burgrave, who was standing by; but at the sound of his voice Mabel fled back into the court. Her own feelings during the past few days had taught her to understand something of the pain she had inflicted on him, and she could not face his eyes.
“All the scattered material collected and brought in, sir,” reported Haycraft, who had been in command of the party at work on the cleared space, “and I have recalled the scouts. It’s a queer thing, but the enemy have had a mounted man patrolling between their lines and ours the whole time. It was too dark to see him, but I heard him distinctly. He was riding round the fort, or rather round three sides of it, from one point on the canal to the other.”
“That encourages one to hope that they have suffered as much as we have,” said the Colonel. “Very likely, if we only knew it, they are in deadly fear of an attack from us; but I couldn’t venture to leave our rear exposed while we made a sortie.”
“The water runs, sir,” said Runcorn, coming up, “and with a few poles and some canvas I could make a shelter for the water-carriers at a point where it’s fairly easy to get down to the edge.”
“Take them, by all means. What about the south-west tower?”
“I have tested it in every way I can, sir, and I think what’s left of it will stand all right, but there’s no hope of patching it up at present.”
“I foresee that this breastwork will be the burden of our lives,” said Colonel Graham to the Commissioner, as Runcorn departed. “We shall have to keep the guard there always under arms, and extra sentries in the tower ruins, for the enemy could take it with a rush at any moment, even if it didn’t topple down under their weight.”
“Yes, it strikes one that there is a certain lack of privacy about the new arrangement as compared with the old,” said Mr Burgrave. “It is like finding the public suddenly in possession of one’s back garden.”
“I should very much like to know what damage the enemy have sustained. Do you care to come with me to the gateway? It ought soon to be light enough to see.”
An exclamation broke from both men as the dawn revealed to them the outlines of the enemy’s position. Half-way across the cleared space extended a curious fissure, and when this was traced back, it lost itself in a heap of ruins to the right of General Keeling’s house. The house itself still stood, although the stone sangars on its roof were destroyed, but the loopholed buildings which had faced it were gone.