I remembered that Mr. Scarlett and all the rest of my men ought to be on the outside of the wall, and wondered what had become of them.
"Mr. Scarlett?" I muttered, but she put a finger on my lips. "Be quiet; be still."
The niggers and servants must have torn away some of the sand-bags to make better openings to fire through or to take them somewhere else, for the room now was filled with a red glare. The crackling noise of flames seemed to grow more furious and closer; but above everything I heard Hartley's voice down below shouting orders.
It was a comfort even to know that he was there.
Then men began to climb the stairs outside the room, panting heavily and running down again. Miss Borsen went out to see what they were doing. She crept back, terrified.
"They're carrying water up to the roof—the flames are so close. It's awful—awful!" and she crouched on the floor with her hands over her eyes. She pulled herself together when Hartley—bleeding from a wound on his head—rushed in to tell me that we were fairly safe for the present, but that Ellis and a few natives on the top of that outbuilding, where they had been all day, were cut off, and that no one knew what had become of Mr. Scarlett and his party. "What with the moonlight and these 'ere flames from the mess buildings," he said, "it's as light as day now, and the Afghans won't come out in the open. They're skulking in the shadows under the walls, and daren't run across the open spaces."
After this—for a time—there was but little rifle firing near us, and the glare from the burning building died down somewhat. Outside on the balcony I could see the Zanzibaris there moving about in the shadow behind the sand-bags and peering over them to look below. Presently one of them saw something to fire at, for he let off his rifle and called to the others. A regular fusillade broke out, and in the midst of it I heard, to my intense relief, Mr. Scarlett's stentorian voice roaring out: "Stop that firing," and then shouting something in Hindustani.
Before I realized what was the meaning of this Miss Borsen sprang to her feet and was out on the balcony in a moment, pulling the wretched servants and Zanzibaris away from the sand-bags and calling out: "Stop! stop!
"It's Mr. Scarlett and your men climbing over the loopholed wall," she cried. "They are crawling over the corner just below us."
In a very few minutes Mr. Scarlett was standing in the room.