Rujub, the Juggler by G. A. Henty (best biographies to read .txt) 📗

“And has no one been hurt with all that firing, Major Hannay?” Mary Hunter asked.

“A good many people have been hurt, Miss Hunter, but no one on our side. I fancy we must have made it very hot for those at the guns, and the Doctor and Mr. Farquharson have been teaching them not to climb trees. At present that firing you hear is against those who are hiding in the gardens.”

An hour later the firing ceased altogether, the natives finding the fire of the defenders so deadly that they no longer dared, by discharging a rifle, to show where they were hiding. They had drawn off from the more distant clumps and bushes, but dared not try and crawl from those nearer the house until after nightfall.

The next morning it was found that during the night the enemy had closed up their embrasures, leaving only openings sufficiently large for the muzzles of the guns to be thrust through, and soon after daybreak they renewed their fire. The Doctor and Mr. Farquharson alone remained on the roof, and throughout the day they kept up a steady fire at these openings whenever the guns were withdrawn. Several of the sandbags were knocked off the parapet during the course of the day, and a few shot found their way through the walls of the upper story, but beyond this no damage was done. The mining was kept up with great vigor, and the gallery advanced rapidly, the servants finding it very hard work to remove the earth as fast as the miners brought it down.

Captain Forster offered to go out with three others at night to try and get into the battery and spike the guns, but Major Hannay would not permit the attempt to be made.

“We know they have several other guns,” he said, “and the risk would be altogether too great, for there would be practically no chance of your getting back and being drawn up over the wall before you were overtaken, even if you succeeded in spiking the guns. There are probably a hundred men sleeping in the battery, and it is likely they would have sentries out in front of it. The loss of four men would seriously weaken the garrison.”

The next morning another battery to the left was unmasked, and on the following day three guns were planted, under cover, so as to play against the gate. The first battery now concentrated its fire upon the outer wall, the new battery played upon the upper part of the house, and the three guns kept up a steady fire at the gate.

There was little rest for the besieged now. It was a constant duel between their rifles and the guns, varied by their occasionally turning their attention to men who climbed trees, or who, from the roofs of some buildings still standing, endeavored to keep down their fire.

Wilson had been released from his labors in the gallery, Bathurst undertaking to get down the earth single handed as fast as the servants could remove it.

“I never saw such a fellow to work, Miss Hannay,” Wilson said one day, when he was off duty, and happened to find her working alone at some bandages. “I know you don't like him, but he is a first rate fellow if there ever was one. It is unlucky for him being so nervous at the guns; but that is no fault of his, after all, and I am sure in other things he is as cool as possible. Yesterday I was standing close to him, shoving the earth back to the men as he got it down. Suddenly he shouted, 'Run, Wilson, the roof is coming down!' I could not help bolting a few yards, for the earth came pattering down as he spoke; then I looked round and saw him standing there, by the light of the lamp, like those figures you see holding up pillars; I forget what they call them—catydigs, or something of that sort.”

“Caryatides,” Isobel put in.

“Yes, that is the name. Some timber had given way above him, and he was holding it up with his arms. I should say that there must have been half a ton of it, and he said, as quietly as possible, 'Get two of those short poles, Wilson, and put up one on each side of me. I can hold it a bit, but don't be longer than you can help about it.' I managed to shove up the timber, so that he could slip out before it came down. It would have crushed us both to a certainty if he had not held it up.”

“Why do you say you know I don't like Mr. Bathurst?”

“I don't exactly know, Miss Hannay, but I have noticed you are the only lady who does not chat with him. I don't think I have seen you speak to him since we have come in here. I am sorry, because I like him very much, and I don't care for Forster at all.”

“What has Captain Forster to do with it?” Isobel asked, somewhat indignantly.

“Oh, nothing at all, Miss Hannay, only, you know, Bathurst used to be a good deal at the Major's before Forster came, and then after that I never met him there except on that evening before he came in here. Now you know, Miss Hannay,” he went on earnestly, “what I think about you. I have not been such an ass as to suppose I ever had a chance, though you know I would lay down my life for you willingly; but I did not seem to mind Bathurst. I know he is an awfully good fellow, and would have made you very happy; but I don't feel like that with Forster. There is nothing in the world that I should like better than to punch his head; and when I see that a fellow like that has cut Bathurst out altogether it makes me so savage sometimes that I have to go and smoke a pipe outside so as not to break out and have a row with him.”

“You ought not to talk so, Mr. Wilson. It is very wrong. You have no right to say that anyone has cut anyone else out as far as I am concerned. I know you are all fond of me in a brotherly sort of way, and I like you very much; but that gives you no right to say such things about other people. Mr. Bathurst ceased his visits not because of Captain Forster but from another reason altogether; and certainly I have neither said nor done anything that would justify your saying that Captain Forster had cut Mr. Bathurst out. Even if I had, you ought not to have alluded to such a thing. I am not angry with you,” she said, seeing how downcast he looked; “but you must not talk like that any more; it would be wrong at any time; it is specially so now, when we are all shut up here together, and none can say what will happen to us.”

“It seemed to me that was just the reason why I could speak about it, Miss Hannay. We may none of us get out of this fix we are in, and I do think we ought all to be friends together now. Richards and I both agreed that as it was certain neither of us had a chance of winning you, the next best thing was to see you and Bathurst come together. Well, now all that's over, of course, but is it wrong for me to ask, how is it you have come to dislike him?”

“But I don't dislike him, Mr. Wilson.”