When the governor and his little suite were brought to the magazine their faces betrayed unspeakable terror.
"May I ask what insane project is now being considered?" quaked Sin Foo.
"Certainly," Dave answered blithely in his ear. "When all other hope is gone, my fighting men will fall back to this spot. When we are all together, and your countrymen are about to conquer, we intend touching off the train of powder that shall blow us all free from Chinese vengeance."
Sin Foo turned several shades of frightened green, one after the other.
"Then you must liberate his excellency and his suite at once," cried the under secretary, falling forward upon his knees. "You cannot, you have no right to risk the governor of Nu-ping in such a fearful tragedy. Order your men to turn us free at once, that we may pa.s.s out through the gate!"
"Oh, no!" Ensign Dave Darrin retorted, with ironical cheeriness. "Your governor and his advisers are wholly responsible for the awful position in which we found our countrymen. For that reason His Excellency the August Governor of Nu-ping shall have the post of honor. He shall sit on top of the magazine, his suite with him!"
At a sign from Dave the governor was swiftly seized and boosted up on to the top of the arching stone roof. It was the first time that his excellency had been handled with anything like roughness. After his excellency Sin Foo and "Burnt-face" were almost tossed up after him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Governor Was Swiftly Seized.]
"Let us down!" screamed Sin Foo piteously. "This is inhuman. Kill yourselves if you will, but you have no right to destroy us with you."
"If we go up in the air on the wave of a powder explosion, then your crowd goes, too," Dave roared back at him. "You shall have ample taste of the cake you have stirred for us all!"
Though his excellency, the governor understood no English, he appeared to have only too clear an idea of what was now going on. Howling, and nearly collapsing with terror, he endeavored to slip down from the roof of the magazine, but ready American hands thrust him back.
Sin Foo, too, made desperate efforts to slip down. As for "Burnt-face,"
that yellow scoundrel had fainted, and now lay p.r.o.ne on the roof.
"This outrage shall not be!" screamed Sin Foo.
"You"ll soon know all about that," retorted Sampson gruffly, hurling the under secretary on his back on top of the magazine.
From the south rampart now came furious sounds of hand-to-hand conflict. Looking up, Dave Darrin saw that his own fighting men were all but surrounded by yellow fiends who had gained the rampart by means of ladders.
Pausing only a second to kiss his wife, Dave darted toward the nearest steps to that rampart, bounding up, sword in one hand, revolver in the other.
In the fleeting instant of turning after kissing his wife farewell, Darrin had shouted to Seaman Sampson:
"My man, I trust to your sand and judgment. Don"t wait for my order, but fire the magazine trail the instant you think it is the only course left."
And after Dave had floated the sailor"s cool, resolute:
"Aye, aye, sir."
CHAPTER XII-RISKING ALL ON ONE THROW
Just before Dave gained the parapet some of his st.u.r.diest Jackies, by seizing a score of the yellow scoundrels and hurling them bodily over the wall on the heads of their countrymen below, had succeeded in clearing some elbow room in which to fight.
The machine gun at this point had ceased sputtering, for its server had been forced back in the rush.
Dave"s sword flew in straight up and down cuts as he hurled himself among the furies who fought to drive him back. Thrice he parried spear thrusts that otherwise would have spitted him.
Rallying around him the strongest of his fighting men, Ensign Darrin drove the yellow men back for an instant.
"Tune up the machine gun," Dave bellowed. "We must rake this mult.i.tude again if we would have a single chance to win."
By signs, since he could not make himself heard many yards away, Darrin pa.s.sed the word down the line for sailors and marines to fill the magazines of their rifles and fire into the Chinese, who were making an effort to raise new ladders against the wall.
But Ensign Dave glancing along his thin, exhausted line to see if many of them were hurt, muttered to himself:
"The next rush ought to sweep us down into the compound. Then for the magazine, and-the Big Noise!"
"Mr. Darrin," bawled a missionary from below, "your sailor, Sampson, ordered me to come to you to say that the governor is nearly dead with terror over his position. Sin Foo promises that if the governor be brought up here, his excellency will order and persuade the rabble to cease fighting and withdraw."
"Do you believe that, at this late stage, the governor could influence these thousands of mad men?" Dave demanded.
"It is more than possible," replied the missionary.
"Tell Sampson, if you please, to bring his excellency up here. If the governor makes one false move, back he goes to the top of the magazine, without any further chance to redeem himself from going up with the rest of us in the Big Noise. Please tell Sampson to rush the governor here."
"And shall I come back, that I may know just what his excellency says to the rabble?" suggested the missionary, who, like most of the others of his band, spoke the language of China.
"Be sure to come back, if you please," Dave begged.
Again swarms of ladders were rushed to the walls. Pigtailed heads were mixed with short-haired Chinese heads, for, though the republic desired all Chinamen to lop off the pigtails of the monarchial days, only a portion of the Chinese men have done so.
At times the swarms coming up the ladders pressed so close that sailors and marines fought them with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles and with fists, even. The superior athletic physique of the Anglo-Saxon bore up before the rushes of the Chinamen with seemingly tireless energy. Had the top of the rampart been broader the Chinese must have carried all before them, but in the narrowness of the top of the wall the sailors had the advantage.
Once more ladders had been tipped over, the last of the yellow men hurled to the ground below, and again the machine guns and the infantry rifles poured their shots into the thousands below.
Now up came Sampson, carrying in his arms a collapsed form that was the Governor of Nu-ping.
"Stand up, confound you!" adjured Seaman Sampson, planting the governor on his feet and seizing him by the collar. "Stand up!"
The greenness of the governor"s yellow face was more ghastly than ever.
He shivered as a few stray shots whistled uncomfortably close to his ears.
The rays of four pocket electric lights were turned upon him by as many sailors equipped with these articles. His excellency stood in the spot light, a very sorry-looking object.
Soldiers and civil officials are chosen from two different cla.s.ses in China. Often these civil officials, when put to the test, prove to be timorous indeed.
"Tell him to secure silence and make his speech," Dave requested of the missionary.
His excellency"s arms waved like a spectre"s as he made gestures appealing for silence. Within thirty seconds the signs of his success with his own people began to appear.
Gradually motion stopped in the mult.i.tude. Some of the more lowly among the Chinese fighters, out beyond the thick of the rabble, even fell upon their knees.
The peril seemingly pa.s.sed, the governor became steadier. He was a ruler speaking to obedient ma.s.ses-or at least so it appeared.