Towards daylight next morning a tremendous fire opened suddenly, and Nita dressed hastily and ran out. Running up to the walls, she saw that a large number of men were approaching the gate, covered by a rain of bullets from the mosque and village, and that, as it seemed to her, an equally strong attack was being made from the other side. The Punjaubis were hard at work, and from the number of dead that covered the ground behind the enemy, she felt how accurate their fire had been. This time the Afridis seemed to have worked themselves up to a pitch of fanatical bravery. Two or three times they halted for a minute, but their leaders came to the front, and, waving their flags, led them forward again. At last, in spite of the fire of the twenty-five men on that side, they reached the gate, at which they began to hack with their heavy knives. Half a dozen men now ran down from the wall, and, climbing up the barricade, opened fire through[Pg 35] the loopholes on the mass below, causing terrible destruction among them. The men who could not get at the gate opened fire at these loopholes, and it was not long before two of the defenders fell, shot through the head. Nita at once went up and took the place of one of them. The two men who had been killed were lying next to each other. Taking a careful aim from one loophole she fired—a man dropped; then she shifted her place to the next vacant loophole, and fired from that. Sometimes she lay still for two or three minutes, and then fired several shots in rapid succession from the loopholes; sometimes using one and sometimes the other, and thus avoiding the storm of bullets that followed each shot. She had no sense of fear now. She was proud of doing her share of the work. That she was doing a share she knew, for scarcely one of her shots missed the mark.
Presently the men before the gate began to sneak off, and in five minutes more all was over, the Afridis suffering heavily as they retreated across the open. Then Nita went down into the courtyard. As she did so, she saw Carter run across the court to the other side, where the combat was still raging. She mounted the wall a short distance away. The enemy had each brought up a great faggot, and thrown it down against the foot of the wall, giving a slope almost to the top.[Pg 36] Up this they had again and again rushed, only to be beaten back each time by the Punjaubis. Fortunately the faggots were insufficient to reach quite to the top of the wall, and the Afridis had to help their comrades up the eight feet between the crest and the top of the parapet, only to see them fall back shot or bayoneted. The arrival of ten men from the gate turned the tables. With thirty rifles playing upon them the Afridis felt that no more could be done, and retired sullenly, taking advantage of every bit of rising ground or bush to lie down and fire.
"Well, Miss Ackworth, that affair is over. I saw you standing at a distance, and was thankful that you did not come up to join us."
"I did my fighting on the other side," she said with a smile. "You know you said that—"
"You did!" he said angrily. "I shall have to put you under arrest, Miss Ackworth, for disobeying orders."
"Thank you! but it happens that I did not disobey orders. You particularly said that I might fire through the loopholes of the gate when it was seriously attacked, and I took advantage of the permission to get possession of two holes where the defenders had been killed, and I flatter myself I did some good. I fired thirty shots, and know enough of my shooting to be sure that there were[Pg 37] not many of them thrown away. The circumstances were exactly what you pointed out. The gate was very seriously attacked, and it was therefore open to me to do a little shooting on my own account."
"It was really wrong of you, Miss Ackworth. The attack was serious, but I never thought for a moment that they would take the gate, and it certainly never entered my mind that you would expose yourself to being killed in this way."
"I took every precaution, Charlie, and fired sometimes from one loophole and sometimes from another; and as I must have accounted for quite twenty-five men, I honestly believe that I, at least, did as much as any of your soldiers, and probably a good deal more."
"That is all very well," he said; "I don't say that you did not do good service, and I admit that my orders did give you some sort of license; however, this must not occur again, or I shall consider it my duty to order you to keep your place in the hospital, and shall have to put a sentry at the door to prevent you from coming out under any pretence while fighting is going on. You must remember that I shall have to account for your safety to the major when he returns, and that were anything to happen to you the blame would fall upon my shoulders, and would not be put down to your[Pg 38] wilfulness. However, should the time ever come when we are driven to our last corner, I shall then authorize you to use your pistol."
Glad to have got off so easily, Nita went down to the hospital. There were but few wounded, and these, as before, had been hit principally on the head and shoulder. Lieutenant Carter came in shortly afterwards: "Let me have a look at your patients, Miss Ackworth; I have gone through the St. John's ambulance course and am pretty good at bandaging. I see that you have taken great pains with the men, but I think that I can possibly make a little improvement here and there. Besides, in some cases, I may be able to get the balls out. It will be more than a week before the surgeon is back with your father, and extracting a bullet might make all the difference between life and death. I have brought in a case of instruments the doctor left behind him. Do you think that you could help me?"
"Certainly I could," she said; "I think my first attack of weakness will be my last."
"Well, then, let us set to work."
With two or three of the patients the ball had penetrated too deeply, but where it had lodged comparatively close to the surface, Carter managed to find its position with a probe, and in four cases he succeeded in getting it out. The patients[Pg 39] behaved with heroic fortitude, and although the operation was necessarily painful, bore it without a murmur. When the work was done and the wounds bandaged again, he said: "Now, Nita, a little fresh air would do you good; come with me up to the ramparts. I am going to try the effects of an explosion. It is certain that the enemy are all gathered now in the mosque and village, and possibly after their defeat of this morning such a blow will disconcert them altogether, and send them to the right-about."
"I should think it would," Nita agreed. "What loss did they suffer this morning, do you think?"
"I should say at least a hundred and fifty of their bravest men."
They went together to the spot where the train of gunpowder ended. "You go on to the walls," he said, "and watch. I will run up as soon as I have lighted the fuse. We calculated that it would last five minutes before it fires the train of gunpowder."
Nita ran up to the wall and a minute later was joined by the officer. He took out his watch and counted the minutes as they went past. "Now, Miss Ackworth," he said, putting his watch into his pocket again, "the fuse ought to be done in forty seconds, but we must allow a minute or two for miscalculation in its length."
[Pg 40]
Two minutes passed, then there was a deep roar; the mosque came down like a house of cards, and many of the dwellings collapsed from the shock of the explosion. Timbers and stones flew up high into the air. There was a moment's pause, and then an outburst of wild yells and screams. "I think that ought to frighten them a bit," the lieutenant said; "unless their leader has great power over them, and is a man of iron nerves, they will be off. The worst of it is, they won't like to return home to face their women after the disasters that they have suffered, and without having obtained some great success. The men scarcely know what nerves mean, and they may very well make up their minds to try one last attempt. You may be sure it will be a formidable one if they do, and they will probably adopt some entirely new scheme. We shall have to be doubly cautious for the next two nights."
Although a sharp look-out was kept, there was no sign of the enemy retreating. Towards evening a scattered fire was opened from the village against the gate, but otherwise the night passed quietly.
"I don't like it," Carter said the next morning; "the enemy have not gone yet, and they have not renewed the attack. I have no doubt that the beggars are up to something. I wish I knew what it was. It worries me."
[Pg 41]
"It does seem strange," Nita said; "but perhaps they have been burying their dead, which would keep them pretty well occupied all day. However, as we have beaten them off twice with the loss to ourselves of only six killed and eight wounded, I suppose that we shall be able to resist them again."
"I am sure we shall if they attack us openly. It is only the unknown that I am afraid of. I was on the walls the whole night, but except for a continued random fire from the village they were quiet. I wish we had a moon. In that case we could make them out comfortably at a hundred yards, whereas on these dark nights one can't see twenty."
The officer's prevision of danger told upon Nita, and when she reached the bungalow that night she dressed herself in Carter's uniform, cut her hair carefully close to her head, and lay down in readiness to leap up at the first alarm.
Had anyone been keeping special watch in the courtyard, they would have seen a number of dark figures clustering between the wall and the hospital. During that and the preceding night a party of Afridis had gathered at the foot of the wall, crawling forward, one by one, on their stomachs. They were armed only with spear and knife, and with these had attacked the wall noiselessly, working the stones out one by one, unobserved and undreamt of by the[Pg 42] watch on the wall above. The first night they had almost completed their work, and by three in the morning on the second had made an opening through which two men could pass abreast; then one had gone back to the village, and presently a stream of men were passing through the wall.
When all was ready they burst out with triumphant yells. They were, however, ignorant of the position of the various houses, and scattered miscellaneously. A moment later the bugle sounded, and twenty men in reserve at once made a rush to the mess-house. The defenders of the wall came running down the various steps leading from the battlements. Many of these were cut down on the way, but twelve of them managed to join their comrades at the mess-house.
Nita sprang up when the first yell broke out, seized her revolver and a box of cartridges, and had reached the mess-house just as the party in the yard came in. The door was kept open until the last fugitive entered, desperately wounded, and followed by a mob of the exulting Afridis, who, however, were prevented from entering the building.
Each man had been instructed as to the place he should occupy in case they were driven from the wall, and the Punjaubis took up their positions in stern silence.
[Pg 43]
"Where is Lieutenant Carter?" Nita asked. "Has anyone seen him?"
"I am here, Miss Ackworth, and, thank God, you are here too. I was one of the last to come in, for I hung round your bungalow to help you if necessary."
Candles and lanterns had been placed on the table, and Nita took a match-box from her pocket and lit several of them.
"Hullo, Miss Ackworth, is that really you?" said the astonished lieutenant as soon as a light was struck.
"Really and truly," she said; "you rather scared me yesterday by your talk, so I got into your uniform before I lay down."
"You did well," he said; "and I should certainly take you for a lad who had just joined the regiment. Well, I must not stay here. The first thing is to go round and rearrange the posts, for we have little more than half our original number now. I shall only leave three or four men on this floor at present, and shall at once open fire from the upper windows. I shall be much obliged if you will stay down here."
"Certainly I will do so. I will place myself near the main door, and will let you know if the enemy seem to be collecting for an attack upon it."
"You are a brave girl," he said, "and I wish I had two or three dozen like you."
[Pg 44]
The Afridis at once pulled down the barricade from the front gate, and the tribesmen swarmed in. Very soon, however, they were obliged to take shelter in the various buildings, for the galling fire from the windows of the mess-house rendered it impossible for them to stay in the open.
At daylight firing ceased altogether and refreshments were served out to the troops, and the lieutenant and Nita sat quietly down to breakfast.
"There is no disguising it," he said, "our position is a very critical one. In the first place, have you any idea how these rascals got into the fort?"
"I have no certain idea at all, Charlie, but I think that in the dark they must have somehow cut a hole through the wall.
"I should think that it was something of that sort; they certainly did not get over it, they could not have done so without being seen by the sentries. That they should have got in has certainly changed our position greatly for the worse. They have shown themselves amazingly determined and enterprising. I have no doubt they will fill every house whose windows bear on ours, and keep up such a fire that we shall not be able to show ourselves. Under cover of that fire they will attack us. We may kill a great many of them, but I fear that in the long run it will come to the same thing.[Pg 45] Our only hope, I think, lies in the chance that the major has received news of the attack upon us, and has abandoned all idea of the expedition and is hurrying back to our relief. God grant that he may arrive to-day, or at latest, to-morrow. It is no use our shutting our eyes to the fact that our position is a very grave one."
Nita herself had already seen this, and yet she turned a little pale at her companion's words. "Well," she said, "I am glad indeed that I put on your uniform. One can but be killed once, and if they fail to kill me I shall do it myself. The only thing that troubles me is the thought of father returning and finding me dead;" and her eyes filled with tears.
"It is awful; I can say nothing to comfort you," he said sadly, "but we must keep up each other's courage till the last. There will be no great occasion to keep up yours, though, for you are the pluckiest girl that I ever saw. As for my own courage, I am in command here, and must keep up a brave face, no matter what I may think."
"I am afraid that I am not so brave as I seem to be. It is as much as I can do really to keep myself from breaking down and crying."
"That is only natural, Nita, and if you would like to have a good cry I will leave you to yourself for half an hour."
[Pg 46]
"Oh no, I don't mean that I am going to, for if I began to cry I don't know when I should stop; and," she added, with an attempt at a smile, "that would shake my hand, and I shall want it to be as steady as I can. I think that I can promise that every shot shall tell this time. I dare say it seems horrid to you that I should be so bloodthirsty, but I hate them all so for coming down and attacking us like this that I would kill them all with one blow if I could."
"I wish you could, very heartily," he said with a smile. "You have been a great friend to me," he went on, taking her hand; "your high spirits have kept me up, and I don't know what I should have done without you. It was you that thought of blowing up the mosque, which I should say must have accounted for a great number of them, not to mention those you brought down with your pistol. You have forgiven my speaking so sharply to you, I hope?"
"I have never thought of it since; you were quite right to blow me up, and I felt that at the time. Yes, we have been great friends, and I have told myself scores and scores of times what a little fool I was to have thought that you were rather stupid because you talked so little and didn't seem to care much for entering into the amusements of the others."
[Pg 47]
"No, I know that I was not what you call a good comrade, but I could not help it. I fancy I was shy, and I did not care much for any of their sports; besides, I knew that they regarded me rather as a killjoy, and that kept me from mixing with them much."
"Well, you have had your turn now, Charlie, and no one could have come out of it more splendidly. You will be a great soldier some day, if—" and she stopped.
"If I live, yes. I hoped some day to have got a chance of distinguishing myself. And the chance has come, but, as you say, it is unlikely that it will ever come again. But, as you also said, one can but die once, and at least I hope that I shall die with credit, and a soldier can wish no more. But I would give all the few hours I may have left to me to know that you would escape."
"That is all nonsense, Charlie; I am only a girl, and a girl's life is not worth anything. If it wasn't for my father I should be fairly content."
"Well," he said, "it is no use talking. We shall have to do the best we can when the time comes. I must go round and see after the men."