"Who knows if an answer came?"
"I know, because I know Stephen. He wouldn"t have come down alive unless he"d got an answer."
Saidee said no more, and they sat together in silence, Victoria holding her sister"s icy hand in hers, which was scarcely warmer, though it tingled with the throbbing of many tiny pulses. So they listened to the firing outside, until suddenly it sounded different to Victoria"s ears.
She straightened herself with a start, listening even more intensely.
"What"s the matter? What do you hear?" Saidee stammered, dry-lipped.
"I"m not sure. But--I think they"ve used up all the cartridges I took them. And there are no more."
"But they"re firing still."
"With their revolvers."
"G.o.d help us, then! It can"t last long," the older woman whispered, and covered her face with her hands.
Victoria did not stop for words of comfort. She jumped up from the couch of blankets and ran to the door, which Stephen had shut. It must be kept wide open, now, in case the defenders were obliged to rush in for the last stand. She pressed close to it, convulsively grasping the handle with her cold fingers.
Then the end came soon, for the enemy had not been slow to detect the difference between rifle and revolver shots. They knew, even before Victoria guessed, exactly what had happened. It was the event they had been awaiting. With a rush, the dozen men dashed over the mound of carca.s.ses and charged the burning barricade.
"Quick, Wings," shouted Stephen, defending the way his friend must take.
The distance was short from the door of the watch-tower to the door of the dining-room, but it was just too long for safety. As Nevill ran across, an Arab close to the barricade shot him in the side, and he would have fallen if Stephen had not caught him round the waist, and flung him to Hamish, who carried him to shelter.
A second more, and they were all in the dining-room. Stephen and Angus had barred the heavy door, and already Hamish and Rostafel were firing through the two round ventilating holes in the window shutters. There were two more such holes in the door, and Stephen took one, Angus the other. But the enemy had already sheltered on the other side of the barricade, which would now serve them as well as it had served the Europeans. The water dashed on to the flames had not extinguished all, but the wet mattresses and furniture burned slowly, and the Arabs began beating out the fire with their gandourahs.
Again there was a deadlock. For the moment neither side could harm the other: but there was little doubt in the minds of the besieged as to the next move of the besiegers. The Arabs were at last free to climb the wall, beyond reach of the loopholes in door or window, and could make a hole in the roof of the dining-room. It would take them some time, but they could do it, and meanwhile the seven prisoners were almost as helpless as trapped rats.
Of the five men, not one was unwounded, and Stephen began to fear that Nevill was badly hurt. He could not breathe without pain, and though he tried to laugh, he was deadly pale in the wan candlelight. "Don"t mind me. I"m all right," he said when Victoria and Saidee began tearing up their Arab veils for bandages. "Not worth the bother!" But the sisters would not listen, and Victoria told him with pretended cheerfulness what a good nurse she was; how she had learned "first aid" at the school at Potterston, and taken a prize for efficiency.
In spite of his protest, Nevill was made to lie down on the blankets in the corner, while the two sisters played doctor; and as the firing of the Arabs slackened, Stephen left the twins to guard door and window, while he and Rostafel built a screen to serve when the breaking of the roof should begin. The only furniture left in the dining-room consisted of one large table (which Stephen had not added to the barricade because he had thought of this contingency) and in addition a rough unpainted cupboard, fastened to the wall. They tore off the doors of this cupboard, and with them and the table made a kind of penthouse to protect the corner where Nevill lay.
"Now," said Stephen, "if they dig a hole in the roof they"ll find----"
"Flag o" truce, sir," announced Hamish at the door. And Stephen remembered that for three minutes at least there had been no firing. As he worked at the screen, he had hardly noticed the silence.
He hurried to join Hamish at the door, and, peeping out, saw a tall man, with a bloodstained bandage wrapped round his head, advancing from the other side of the barricade, with a white handkerchief hanging from the barrel of his rifle. It was Maeddine, and somehow Stephen was glad that the Arab"s death did not lie at his door. His anger had cooled, now, and he wondered at the murderous rage which had pa.s.sed.
As Maeddine came forward, fearlessly, he limped in spite of an effort to hide the fact that he was almost disabled.
"I have to say that, if the ladies are given up to us, no harm shall come to them or to the others," he announced in French, in a clear, loud voice. "We will take the women with us, and leave the men to go their own way. We will even provide them with animals in place of those we have killed, that they may ride to the north."
"Do not believe him!" cried Saidee. "Traitors once, they"ll be traitors again. If Victoria and I should consent to go with them, to save all your lives, they wouldn"t spare you really. As soon as we were in their hands, they"d burn the house or blow it up."
"There can be no question of our allowing you to go, in any case," said Stephen. "Our answer is," he replied to Maeddine, "that the ladies prefer to remain with us, and we expect to be able to protect them."
"Then all will die together, except one, who is my promised wife,"
returned the Arab. "Tell that one that by coming with me she can save her sister, whom she once seemed to love more than herself, more than all the world. If she stays, not only will her eyes behold the death of the men who failed to guard her, but the death of her sister. One who has a right to decide the lady"s fate, has decided that she must die in punishment of her obstinacy, unless she gives herself up."
"Tell Si Maeddine that before he or the marabout can come near us, we shall be dead," Victoria said, in a low voice. "I know Saidee and I can trust you," she went on, "to shoot us both straight through the heart rather than they should take us. That"s what you wish, too, isn"t it, Saidee?"
"Yes--yes, if I have courage or heart enough to wish anything," her sister faltered.
But Stephen could not or would not give that message to Maeddine. "Go,"
he said, the fire of his old rage flaming again. "Go, you Arab dog!"
Forgetting the flag of truce in his fury at the insult, Maeddine lifted his rifle and fired; then, remembering that he had sinned against a code of honour he respected, he stood still, waiting for an answering shot, as if he and his rival were engaged in a strange duel. But Stephen did not shoot, and with a quick word forbade the others to fire. Then Maeddine moved away slowly and was lost to sight behind the barricade.
As he disappeared, a candle which Victoria had placed near Nevill"s couch on the floor, flickered and dropped its wick in a pool of grease.
There was only one other left, and the lamp had been forgotten in the kitchen: but already the early dawn was drinking the starlight. It was three o"clock, and soon it would be day.
For some minutes there was no more firing. Stillness had fallen in the quadrangle. There was no sound except the faint moaning of some wounded animal that lived and suffered. Then came a pounding on the roof, not in one, but in two or three places. It was as if men worked furiously, with pickaxes; and somehow Stephen was sure that Maeddine, despite his wounds, was among them. He would wish to be the first to see Victoria"s face, to save her from death, perhaps, and keep her for himself. Still, Stephen was glad he had not killed the Arab, and he felt, though they said nothing of it to each other, that Victoria, too, was glad.
They must have help soon now, if it were to come in time. The knocking on the roof was loud.
"How long before they can break through?" Victoria asked, leaving Nevill to come to Stephen, who guarded the door.
"Well, there are several layers of thick adobe," he said, cheerfully.
"Will it be ten minutes?"
"Oh, more than that. Much more than that," Stephen a.s.sured her.
"Please tell me what you truly think. I have a reason for asking. Will it be half an hour?"
"At least that," he said, with a tone of grave sincerity which she no longer doubted.
"Half an hour. And then----"
"Even then we can keep you safe for a little while, behind the screen.
And help may come."
"Have you given up hope, in your heart?"
"No. One doesn"t give up hope."
"I feel the same. I never give up hope. And yet--we may have to die, all of us, and for myself, I"m not afraid, only very solemn, for death must be wonderful. But for you--to have you give your life for ours----"
"I would give it joyfully, a hundred times for you."
"I know. And I for you. That"s one thing I wanted to tell you, in case--we never have a chance to speak to each other again. That, and just this beside: one reason I"m not afraid, is because I"m with you. If I die, or live, I shall be with you. And whichever it"s to be, I shall find it sweet. One will be the same as the other, really, for death"s only a new life."
"And I have something to tell you," Stephen said. "I worship you, and to have known you, has made it worth while to have existed, though I haven"t always been happy. Why, just this moment alone is worth all the rest of my life. So come what may, I have lived."
The pounding on the roof grew louder. The sound of the picks with which the men worked could be heard more clearly. They were rapidly getting through those layers of adobe, of whose thickness Stephen had spoken.
"It won"t be half an hour now," Victoria murmured, looking up.
"No. Promise me you"ll go to your sister and Nevill Caird behind the screen, when I tell you."