The command moved cautiously forward until the pilot stopped and the midshipman knew that the position desired had been reached. Deploying his men quietly, he bade them advance silently toward the pandemonium of the Chinese attackers ahead of them. While he moved forward up the gentle rise of the land he could see distinctly the bright flashes from the enemy’s guns, but his own men were as yet undiscovered and protected by the intervening crest of the low hill up which they were doggedly marching. He glanced fearfully to his left to see how Commander Hughes and his men were faring; that part of the battle-ground was in darkness; the Chinese seemed now too much absorbed in their desire to destroy the mission to give thought to the handful of sailors known to have crossed the bridge before it collapsed into the ditch below.
Steadily the flanking party advanced toward the coveted position over the uneven ground, the men casting apprehensive glances to left and right, their rifles held ready for instant conflict.
While Phil’s attention was absorbed by the stirring sight ahead of him, against which he would in but a few minutes launch his hundred men in what seemed a forlorn hope, to take and silence the formidable battery now exerting itself to the utmost to breach the wall of the compound, a terrifying danger loomed before him. The sailors in the compound were delivering a murderous fire from their Colt guns, directed at the troublesome artillery, but many of the bullets were falling alarmingly close to the flanking force. The midshipman realized that he must go no farther; with the battery scarce three hundred yards in his front and his men as yet undiscovered he must call a halt and remain without that awful zone of fire until their friends on the mission wall had been apprised of his intentions by Commander Hughes.
The word was passed quietly by word of mouth along the line, and the sailors, keyed to the highest pitch of excitement, threw themselves face downward on the ground, while less than a hundred yards ahead of them a storm of bullets swept every inch of the soil.
“It looks black,” Langdon breathed in the grass close to Phil’s ear as they both were racked by ominous foreboding while watching the sweep of the devastating stream of bullets; “they haven’t got word to the mission yet that we are here; if those guns are pointed ten degrees further this way, it will be all up with us. See,” he added pointing in the direction of the active artillery, “those guns are behind intrenchments, for otherwise the Chinese could not have stood such a murderous fire for a minute. It’s withering,” he gasped with a shudder, while the singing of bullets redoubled, seeming to be slowly drawing their deadly zone nearer to encompass the crouching sailors.
Phil cast his anxious eyes often on the dark slope of the mission hill where he had left the main force under Commander Hughes, but the night was too dark for him to discover what was going forward. There was nothing for him to do save wait with what patience he could muster. To rush ahead could mean but annihilation at the hands of his own guns. He must not open fire upon the battery, so close that the smell of burning powder was rank in his nostrils; to do so might draw the fire of the Colt guns, for how could the mission know that help was so near at hand?
After what seemed an eternity to the anxious men, the fire of the Colt guns suddenly ceased, while from the Chinese position, believing no doubt that their enemy was weakening, a great volume of musketry fire added its roar to that of the big guns. Phil felt the moment had come; the cessation of the rhythmical discharges of the Colt guns must be the result of communication between Commander Hughes and those defending the compound. He glanced anxiously through the night toward the hidden enemy, while he was at that moment framing the words which would send his hundred men in a mad dash against an intrenched foe, counting their numbers by the thousands.
CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST CHARGE
With the order to charge trembling on his lips, Phil hesitated. What did the silence of the mission tell him? Had Commander Hughes succeeded in gaining an entrance, and had the mission ceased its fire by his order to allow the midshipman’s party to flank the battery so intent upon breaching the wall through which the savage horde would surge into the enclosure, butchering every Christian found there?
He turned to O’Neil, lying quietly beside him in the high grass. Through many adventures the lad had become thoroughly convinced of the sailor’s good and calm judgment. He turned to him now, a grave fear in his mind that precious moments were slipping away, yet if he made a mistake and that withering fire should again be loosened, all would indeed be lost.