Then we heard tom-toms beating close by, and the clash of bra.s.s or some other metal that had a ring like cymbals.
"They"re waking up," cried "old Hankey Pankey" to Mr Gresham, with a pleased smile on his face. "The column will now advance. Close your ranks, men. Keep steady. Forward!"
We had hardly taken a dozen paces, advancing in the same formation as before, when we heard the roar of guns in front and steady volleys of rifle-fire, whose sound clearly betokened that it emanated from weapons similar to our own.
"By George, we"ll be too late!" cried "old Hankey Pankey," hobbling onwards at a fine rate for a moment, and then slewing round to give some fresh order to those following up behind. "Come on, men--come on at the double. Spread out your flanks, Mr Gresham! Spread out your flanks, d"ye hear? Tell Mr Shrapnell to bring up the guns. Spread out there, men--spread out in skirmishing order, to cover your front! Hang it, come on, my lads--come on, or we"ll be too late!"
Captain Oliver of the _Merlin_ was running us cheek by jowl with his contingent on the left and Commander Jellaby of the _Bullfinch_ trying to outstrip him on our right; so, we had hard work to keep our place in line ahead.
But "old Hankey Pankey" was not going to let any one, junior or senior in the service, beat him for first place when fighting was on; and no one who had known how terribly he had been wounded, the muscles of his legs having become shrunk after the holes made by the matchlock ball had closed up, would have dreamt him capable of going the pace he did now.
"Forward, men--forward!" he yelled out spasmodically, as he hobbled on like the wind in front, taking long hops at intervals over any obstruction that lay in his path. "_Mermaids_ to the front! You"re not going to let us be licked, men, by any other ship on the station!"
How he got out the words between his leaps, and bounds, and hops, I am sure I cannot tell; but, get them out he did, though he must have been pretty well pumped out already by his exertions, and his breath nearly all spent.
But, we hardly needed the stimulus to prompt us to action; for in barely another half minute we burst out of the bush, going at the double and spread out in a half circle, so as to catch all stragglers who might have vainly hoped to escape in our direction, for we were right in the rear of the Arab town.
This was already all ablaze from the rockets and bursting sh.e.l.ls of the admiral"s brigade, the straw-thatched houses as they looked, though they were really covered with dry plantain and banana leaves, burning up like so many fierce bonfires in our front, and right and left; while the sharp rattle of musketry and loud banging of the guns of the first division was mixed up with the platoon-like reports from the matchlocks of the Somalis, who were urging on their somewhat reluctant allies, the slave-traders of the interior, with hoa.r.s.e yells and shrill screams, bolstering up their courage likewise by the beating of innumerable gongs and clashing cymbals, the consensus of sound making din enough to have wakened up all the dead dervishes of the desert for generations past, and caused them, had they come to life, to have proclaimed a "Jehad" or holy war against us, and thus roused up all the fanaticism of all those of the Moslem race yet left alive!
Such was our grand rush, however, coming as it did on top of the cleverly planned combined attack of the admiral"s columns in front of the town, thus taking the Arabs between two fires, that even Saladin would not have saved them.
Hundreds of them were shot down behind their stockades, which I must say they defended gallantly to the last; while those who were not potted by our bullets, were "put out of action" by the bayonets of us bluejackets, who carried their intrenchments by storm.
So far, I was only one of the crowd, loading and firing my Martini as I advanced or halted on the word of command being given by "old Hankey Pankey"; who, plucky as a lion, was in the forefront all through, his uniform cap tumbled off and his face all blackened with powder, "potting" this chap with the revolver that he held in his left hand, or sticking another Somali through the gizzard with his sword, which was always thrust out straight before him as he went onward, and always "at the point."
But, now, I had a little diversion on my own account.
"Left turn!" shouted our company leader Mr Chisholm, whose sharp eye detected through the smoke a body of the Arabs attacking an officer and a detached party of our men who had escaladed the fortifications on the right of the town; and seeing that they were hard pressed, though making a gallant stand of it against heavy odds, our officer quickly called out, "Double! Charge, my lads!"
By George! We did charge; and then, the bronze-coloured beggars, who had thought to make an easy prey of our before isolated comrades, turned savagely to receive us, a whole horde of them!
Larrikins, who was next me, got his right arm transfixed by one of their light spears or jereeds, a lot of which came whistling through the air into our ranks like a flight of sparrows.
This made Larry drop his rifle like a hot potato; but, nothing daunted, he kept alongside of me all the same, drawing his cutla.s.s as we raced along together.
"Lor", Tom, that wer" a nipper, that wer"!" he cried, with a grin on his face, as if the wound were rather a joke than otherwise. "But I"m jiggered if I don"t pay out the joker who skewered me then!"
At that moment a couple of the Arabs made at the pair of us; and I had quite enough to do to guard off the shower of cuts one of them delivered round my devoted head, his curved scimitar whirling about me in all directions and the sunlight from above making it flash so that it dazzled my eyes.
However, a lucky drive with my sword-bayonet through the rascal"s throat stopped his little game; for the swarthy Arab dropped his scimitar instanter, with a gurgle of rage and an upward roll of his eyes, "like a dying duck in a thunder-storm," as father used to say, tumbling down all of a heap as dead as mutton.
Hardly had I done with him when, strange to say, I heard the bark of a dog.
This was very unusual, all Mahometans hating dogs and believing them to be possessed of the Devil.
Besides, somehow or other, I seemed to recognise the bark as familiar to me; for, believe me, the voices of dogs and their respective expressions of grief or joy, though sounding the same to alien ears, are as distinct to such as are accustomed to hear them frequently as the voices of human beings of our acquaintance or any individual.
Before I had time to think, however, though my senses were all on the alert from hearing the dog"s bark, I saw that the naval officer whom we had rushed up to help at Mr Chisholm"s instigation, was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with two Arabs, one of whom, a tall, lean Somali, with a peculiar sort of turban round his head, unlike any of those sported by the rest of the gang, I was certain was no less a personage than the man, or "sheik" as he was called, Abdalah, the leader of the Somalis.
As I noted this, the officer fell; but, ere the big Arab, who drew back a long spear that he wielded, could give him the fatal thrust he intended, I was upon him.
Clubbing my rifle, I dealt a vicious blow at the savage brute"s head which shivered the spear wherewith he tried to guard it.
The rascal, though, was not discomfited; for, clutching hold of a tulwar he carried loosely in a sash of the old dressing-gown-like garment he wore, he almost slashed my nose off, the barrel of my Martini only just preventing me from losing all my good looks!
The shock sent me on my knees; and then, seeing a sword lying on the ground in front of me, I gripped hold of this more by instinct than anything else, and I rose to my feet again as quick as lightning.
Quick as I was, however, the brute of an Arab was quicker; and, aiming a terrible slashing cut at me with the tulwar, which had it landed would have decapitated me as clean as a whistle, and the last word of my history been told for good and all--aye, but for a wonderful interposition just as I thought my end had come.
With a piercing yelp, that was succeeded by a deep, savage growl, a white dog bounded up from the ground beside the officer, who had not yet recovered from the effects of the blow that had struck him down.
Would you believe it, this dog was "Gyp"!
Making a jump which no one could have imagined a dog of his size capable of doing, he clutched the Arab chief by the throat as he slashed at me, making him stumble back, thus causing the cut that would otherwise have sliced off my head like a carrot to be wasted in the air.
As the big murdering rascal stumbled back, I thrust forth my arm holding the officer"s sword and sent the blade right through the beggar"s stomach up to the hilt.
"Be the powers, me joker," cried a voice behind me, as sheik and "Gyp"
and I all fell together on the ground in one batch, "ye did that well, alannah! Begorrah, it wor roight in his bri"d-basket, sure!"
"My goodness!" I exclaimed, recognising a voice that sounded as familiar to my ears as the bark of "Gyp" just now. "Who"s that?"
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
WARM GREETINGS.
"Tom, don"t ye know me, owld chappie?" cried Mick, for, of course, it was him; though, what with my deadly struggle and rescue by "Gyp," whom I thought thousands of miles away, besides the fact of my old chum coming so unexpectedly on the scene, I felt perfectly bewildered, thinking that I must be in a dream. "Begorrah, ye"re starin" at me, sure, ez if I wor a ghost or a banshee, bedad!"
"Really, Mick," said I, when I could at length speak and was convinced that it was himself in proper person and no phantom of my imagination, gripping his fist in a hearty grasp that expressed more than I could say and which he understood better than all the words in the world, "you don"t mean to say it"s you! How did you come here?"
"Faith, on the sowl of me fat," he answered, with his jolly laugh, speaking in that racy brogue which sounded like music, it being so long since I had heard it. "Sure, Oi"ve marched oop from the coast the same ez yersilf, alannah!"
"But," said I, still wondering at the unlooked-for sight of him there all of a sudden like that, "I thought you were on the West Coast, cruising about the Bight of Benin, or up the Niger, or somewhere thereabouts?"
"So I wor," he replied, with a grin at the stupefied look on my face; "but you forgits, Tom, our squadron"s coom round here with the admiral to give ye a hilping hand, sure, in yer shindy with these blissid Arab thayves here. So, faith, Oi"ve coom along with the rest in the owld _Grampus_, bedad. But, Oi"m lookin" for our cap"en now. Have you sayn him, Tom, at all--he wor in the thick of the foightin" jist now summat about heres?"
"Your cap"en," said I, trying to repress "Gyp"s" frantic joy at seeing me again; the faithful animal, who had stuck to the Arab chief with a tenacious grip, only releasing him when he was a.s.sured of his not being likely to trouble any of us any more, now coming up to me and springing up, trying to lick my face as he yelped and whined with delight. "Who is your cap"en?"
"Why, Tom, I thought you knowed," he replied, looking from me down at "Gyp," whose stumpy tail, and every hair on his white coat as well, seemed on the wag, his excited affections only finding outlet in this way. "Faith, he"s Cap"en Sackville, to be sure, be all the powers!"
"What--"
"Yis," said Mick Donovan before I could get any further, answering my unasked question; "the same ez we lied aboord with us in the owld _Saint Vincent_."
I was dumbfounded.
"What an a.s.s I am!" I jerked out, shaking off poor "Gyp," and proceeding to where the officer lay on the ground a little way from us, stretched out face downwards. "I ought to have known it was him from seeing the dog!"