The Kopje Garrison Part 27

"Ps.h.!.+ It's a disease the men have got. Fancy. Every fellow on duty will be seeing the same thing now. There, that's enough of it."

"Look out!" cried Lennox angrily; and then in the same breath, "What's that?"

For there was a sharp, grating sound as of stone against stone, and then silence.

"Stand fast, every man," cried Lennox excitedly, seizing his revolver and looking along the broad, rugged shelf upon which they stood in the direction from which the sound had come.

"A lantern here," cried the captain as a sharp movement was heard, and half-a-dozen men at a word from their officer doubled along the shelf for a couple of dozen yards and then stood fast, while the other end of the path was blocked in the same way.

Lennox's heart was beating hard with excitement, and he started as he felt d.i.c.kenson grip his arm firmly.

Then all stood fast, listening, as they waited for the lantern to be brought. Quite ten minutes of painful silence elapsed before a couple of dim lights were seen approaching, the bearers having to come down from the gun-platform; and when the two non-commissioned officers who bore them approached, and in obedience to orders held them up, they displayed nothing but swarthy, eager-looking faces, and the piled-up rugged and weathered rocks on one side, the black darkness on the other.

"Come this way, sergeant," said Captain Edwards, and he, as officer in command of the detachment that night, led on, followed closely by Captain Roby and the two subalterns.

They went along in perfect silence, the lanterns here being alternately held up and down so that the rugged shelf and the piled-up ma.s.ses of rock which formed the nearly perpendicular side of the kopje in that part might be carefully examined.

This was done twice over, the party pa.s.sing each time where their men were blocking the ends of the shelf which had been selected for one of the posts.

"It's strange," said Captain Roby at last. "I can see no loose stone."

"No," said Captain Edwards. "It was just as if a good-sized block had slipped down from above. Let's have another look."

This was done, with no better result, and once more the party stood fast in the dim light, gazing in a puzzled way.

"Can any one suggest anything?" said Captain Roby.

There was silence for a few moments, and then Lennox caught hold of d.i.c.kenson's arm and gave it a meaning pressure as he turned to the two captains, who were close together.

"I have an idea," he whispered. "Give the orders loudly for the men to march off. Take them round to the south, and wait."

"What for?" said Captain Roby snappishly.

"I should like d.i.c.kenson and me to be left behind. I'll fire if there is anything."

"Oh, rubbis.h.!.+" said Captain Roby contemptuously.

"No," said his brother officer quietly. "It is worth trying." Then turning to the two sergeants who bore the lanterns, he said, "When I say put out those lights, don't do it; cover them sharply with greatcoats."

Directly after he gave his first order, when the lanterns rattled, and all was dark.

Then followed the next orders, and tramp! tramp! tramp! the men marched away like a relieving guard, Lennox and d.i.c.kenson standing fast with their backs leaning against the rugged wall of rock, perfectly motionless in the black darkness, and looking outward and down at the faint light or two visible below in the camp.

As they drew back against the rock Lennox felt for his companion's hand, which gripped his directly, and so they stood waiting.

To them the silence seemed quite appalling, for they felt as if they were on the eve of some discovery-what, neither could have said; but upon comparing notes afterwards each said he felt convinced that something was about to happen, but paradoxically, at the same time, as if it never would; and when a quarter of an hour must have pa.s.sed, the excitement grew more intense, as the pressure of their hot, wet hands told, for they felt then that whatever was about to happen must befall them then, if they were not interrupted by the return of their officers.

Each tried to telegraph to his companion the intensity of feeling from which he suffered, and after a fas.h.i.+on one did communicate to the other something of his sensations.

But nothing came to break the intense silence, and they stood with strained ears, now gazing up at the glittering stars, and now down through the darkness at the two feeble lights that they felt must be those outside the colonel's quarters in the market-square.

"I don't know how it was," said Lennox afterwards, "but just at the last I began somehow to think of being at the back of the colonel's hut that night just after Sergeant James had put out the light upon discovering the train."

"I felt that if the business went on much longer, something-some of my strings that were all on the strain-would crack," interrupted d.i.c.kenson.

"Yes," said Lennox; "I felt so too."

And this was how he was feeling-strained-till something seemed to be urging him to cry out or move in the midst of that intense period, when all at once he turned cold all down the back, for a long-drawn, dismal, howling wail rose in the distance, making him shudder just as he had seen the sentry quiver in his horror and dread.

"Bah! Hyena," he said to himself the next moment; and then a thrill ran through him as he felt d.i.c.kenson's grip increase suddenly with quite a painful pressure.

He responded to it directly, every nerve in his body quivering with the greater strain placed upon it by what was happening, till every nerve and muscle seemed to harden into steel. For the long expected-whatever it might prove to be-the mystery was about to unfold itself, and in his intense feeling it seemed to Lennox as if the glittering stars were flas.h.i.+ng out more light.

It was only a noise, but a noise such as Lennox felt that he must hear-a low, dull, harsh, grating noise as of stone pa.s.sing over stone; and though he could see nothing with his eyes, mentally he knew that one of the great time-bleached and weathered blocks of granite that helped to form the cyclopean face of the kopje wall had begun to turn as on a pivot.

This grating sound lasted for a few seconds only, and it came apparently from a couple of yards away to his right, as he stood with his back pressed against the rugged natural stones.

Then the noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and he listened, now holding his breath in the vain hope that it would silence the heavy, dull beating of his heart, whose throbs seemed to echo painfully in his brain.

He pressed d.i.c.kenson's hand again, to feel from the return grip how thoroughly his comrade was on the alert.

Then all was perfectly silent again, while a dull feeling of despair began to a.s.sert itself as he felt that they were going to hear no more.

At last, with head wrenched round to the right, his revolver feeling wet in his fingers and his eyes seeming to start with the strain of gazing along the shelf at the brilliant stars before him, his nerves literally jerked and he felt perfectly paralysed and unable to stir, for here, not six feet away, he could make out against the starry sky the dimly-marked silhouette of a heavily-built man.

Chapter Fourteen.

A Strange Find.

It seemed to Drew Lennox that he was staring helplessly at the dark shadowy shape for quite a minute-but it was only a matter of a few seconds-before, s.n.a.t.c.hing his left hand from his companion's grasp, he let his revolver drop to the full extent of its lanyard, and sprang open-handed at the man.

The movement warned the latter of his danger, and turning sharply round from where he was watching the direction taken by the detachment, he made a desperate effort to catch the young officer by the throat.

But Lennox was springing at him, and the weight of his impact drove the man back for a yard or two; but he recovered himself, got a grip, and then a desperate struggle commenced at the edge of the rugged shelf of rock just where the kopje went down for some fifty feet almost perpendicularly, while a pile of heaped-up fragments which had lodged after falling from above stood out ready to receive the unfortunate who fell.

Neither spoke as they gripped, but stood panting heavily as if gathering breath for the terrible struggle that threatened death to one if not both combatants. They were not well matched. Lennox seemed to be slightly the taller, but he was young, slight, and not fully knit; while his adversary was broad-shouldered, and possessed limbs that were heavily coated with hardened muscles, so that in spite of the weight brought to bear in the young officer's sprint he recovered himself where a weaker man must have been driven backward to the ground.

d.i.c.kenson sprang forward to his comrade's help, but stopped short as he realised that in that narrow s.p.a.ce there was only room for a struggle between two, and by interfering he would be more likely to hinder his friend than help. Hence it was that he stood waiting for his opportunity, listening to the hoa.r.s.e breathing of the wrestlers and watching the faintly seen struggle-for capture on the one part, for ridding himself of his adversary by pus.h.i.+ng him off the shelf on the other.

In a very few moments Lennox had recognised the fact that he was overmatched; but this only roused the stubborn bull-dog nature of the young Englishman, and setting his teeth hard, he brought to bear every feint and manoeuvre he had learnt at his old Devon school, where wrestling was popular, and in the struggles of the football field.

But all in vain: his adversary was far too heavy for him, and, to his rage and discomfiture, in spite of all his efforts he found one great arm tightening about his ribs with crus.h.i.+ng pressure, while the man was bending down to lift him from the shelf, evidently to hurl him off into s.p.a.ce.

The position was desperate, and in its brief moments Lennox did all that was in his power, tightening his grasp in the desperate resolve that if so savage a plan was carried out he would not go alone.