Midnight Webs

That’s what I ought to have done; but I never did have much judgment.

Now for what I did do.

Slipping back from the window, I went cautiously to the doorway, and entered the old room where Chunder was standing at the window; and I went in so quietly, and he was so intent, that I had crept close, and was in the act of leaping on to him before he turned round and tried to avoid me.

He was too late, though, for with a bound I was on him, pinioning his hands, and holding him down on the window-sill, with his head half out, as, bearing down upon him, I leaned out as far as I could, yelling out, —

“Sentry on the west roof, mark man below. Stop him, or fire!”

The black fellow below drew a long awkward-looking pistol, and aimed at me, but only for a moment. Perhaps he was afraid of killing Chunder, for the next instant he had stuck the pistol back in his calico belt, and, with head stooped, was running as hard as he could run, when I could hardly contain myself for rage, knowing as I did how important it was for him to have been stopped.

“Bang!”

A sharp report from the roof, and the fellow made a bound.

Was he hit?

No: he only seemed to ran the faster.

“Bang!”

Another report as the runner came in sight of the second sentry.

But I saw no more, for all my time was taken up with Chunder; for as the second shot rang out, he gave a heave, and nearly sent me through the open window.

It was by a miracle almost that I saved myself from breaking my neck, for it was a good height from the ground; but I held on to him tightly with a clutch such as he never had on his arms and neck before; and then, with a strength for which I shouldn’t have given him credit, he tussled with me, now tugging to get away, now to throw me from the window, his hot breath beating all the time upon my cheeks, and his teeth grinning, and eyes rolling savagely.

It was only a spurt, though, and I soon got the better of him.

I don’t want to boast, but I suppose our cold northern bone and muscle are tougher and stronger than theirs; and at the end of five minutes, puffing and blown, I was sitting on his chest, taking a paper from inside his calico.

That laid me open; for, like a flash, I saw then that he had a knife in one hand, while before another thought could pass through my mind, it was sticking through my jacket and the skin of my ribs, and my fist was driven down against his mouth for him to kiss for the second time in his life.

Next minute, Captain Dyer and a dozen men were in the room, Chunder was handcuffed and marched off, and the captain was eagerly questioning me.

“But is that fellow shot down or taken – the one outside?” I asked.

“Neither,” said Captain Dyer; “and it is too late now: he has got far enough away.”

Then I told him what I had seen, and he looked at the packet, his brow knitting as he tried to make it out.

“I ought to have come round and given the alarm, captain,” I said bitterly.

“Yes, my good fellow, you ought,” he said; “and I ought to have had that black scoundrel under lock and key days ago. But it is too late now to talk of what ought to have been done; we must talk of what there is to do. – But are you hurt?”

“He sent his knife through my jacket, sir,” I said, “but it’s only a scratch on the skin;” and fortunately that’s what it proved to be, for we had no room for wounded men, since we should have them soon enough.

Story 1-Chapter XI

An hour of council, and then another – our two leaders not seeming to agree as to the extent of the coming danger. Challenge from the west roof:

“Orderly in sight.”

Sure enough, a man on horseback riding very slowly, and as if his horse was dead beat.

“Surely it isn’t that poor fellow come back, because his horse has failed? He ought to have walked on,” said Captain Dyer.

“Same man,” said Lieutenant Leigh, looking through his glass; and before very long, the poor fellow who had gone away at daybreak rode slowly up to the gate, was admitted, and then had to be helped from his horse, giving a great sobbing groan as it was done.

“In here, quick!” I said, for I thought I heard the ladies’ voices; and we carried him in to where Mrs Bantem was getting ready for dinner, and there we laid him on a mattress.

“Despatches, captain,” he says, holding up the captain’s letter to Colonel Maine. “They didn’t get that. They were too many for me. I dropped one, though, with my pistol, and cut my way through the others.”

As he spoke, I untwisted his leather sword-knot, which was cutting into his wrist, for his hacked and blood-stained sabre was hanging from his hand.

“Wouldn’t go back into the scabbard,” he said faintly; and then with a harsh gasp: “Water – water!”

He revived then a hit; and as Captain Dyer and Mrs Bantem between them were attending to, and binding up his wounds, he told us how he had been set upon some miles off, and had been obliged to fight his way back; and, poor chap, he had fought; for there were no less than ten lance-wounds in his arms, thighs, and chest, from a slight prick up to a horrible gash, deep and long enough, it seemed to me, to let out half-a-dozen poor fellows’ souls.

Just in the middle of it, I saw Captain Dyer start and look strange, for there was a shadow came across where we were kneeling; and the next instant he was standing between Miss Ross and the wounded man.

“Pray, go, dear Elsie; this is no place for you,” I heard him whisper to her.

“Indeed, Lawrence,” she said gently, “am I not a soldier’s daughter? I ought to say this is no place for you. Go, and make your arrangements for our defence.”

I don’t think any one but me saw the look of love she gave him as she took sponge and lint from his hand, pressing it as she did so, and then her pale face lit up with a smile as she met his eyes; the next moment she was kneeling by the wounded trooper, and in a quiet firm way helping Mrs Bantem, in a manner that made her, poor woman, stare with astonishment.

“God bless you, my darling,” she whispered to her as soon as they had done, and the poor fellow was lying still – a toss-up with him whether it should be death or life; and I saw Mrs Bantem take Miss Ross’s soft white hand between her two great rough hard palms, and kiss it just once.

“And I’d always been abusing and running her down for a fine madam, good for nothing but to squeal songs, and be looked at,” Mrs Bantem said to me a little while after. “Why, Isaac Smith, we shall be having that little maid showing next that there’s something in her.”

“And why not?” I said gruffly.

“Ah, to be sure,” says she, with a comical look out of one eye; “why not? But, Isaac, my lad,” she said sadly, and looking at me very earnestly, “I’m afraid there’s sore times coming, and if so, God in heaven help those poor bairns! O, if I’d been a man, and been there!” she cried, as she recollected what the trooper had told us; and she shook her fist fiercely in the air. “It’s what I always did say: soldiers’ wives have no business to have children; and it’s rank cruelty to the poor little things to bring them into the world.”

Mrs Bantem then went off to see to her patient, while I walked into the court, wondering what would come next, and whether, in spite of all the little bitternesses and grumbling, everybody, now that the stern realities of life were coming upon us, would show up the bright side of his or her nature; and somehow I got very hopeful about it.

I felt just then that I should have much liked to have a few words with Lizzy Green, but I had no chance, for it was a busy time with us. Captain Dyer felt strongly enough his responsibility, and not a minute did he lose in doing all he could for our defence; so that after an anxious day, with nothing more occurring, when I looked round at what had been done in barricading and so on, it seemed to me, speaking as a soldier, that, as far as I could judge, there was nothing more to be done, though still the feeling would come home to me that it was a great place for forty men to defend, if attacked by any number. Captain Dyer must have seen that, for he had arranged to have a sort of citadel at the north end by the gateway, and this was to be the last refuge, where all the ammunition and food and no end of chatties of water were stowed down in the great vault-place, which went under this part of the building and a good deal of the court. Then the watch was set, trebled this time, on roof and at window, and we waited impatiently for the morning.

Yes, we all of us, I believe, waited impatiently for the morning; when I think, if we had known all that was to come, we should have knelt down and prayed for the darkness to keep on hour after hour, for days, and weeks, and months, sooner than the morning should have broke as it did upon a rabble of black faces, some over white clothes, some over the British uniform that they had disgraced; and as I, who was on the west roof, heard the first hum of their coming, and caught the first glimpse of the ragged column, I gave the alarm, setting my teeth hard as I did so; for, after many years of soldiering, I was now for the first time to see a little war in earnest.

Captain Dyer’s first act on the alarm being given was to double the guard over the three blacks, now secured in the strongest room he could find, the black nurse being well looked after by the women. Then, quick almost as thought, every man was at the post already assigned to him; the women and children were brought into the corner rooms by the gates, and then we waited excitedly for what should follow. The captain now ordered me out of the little party under a sergeant, and made me his orderly; and so it happened that always being with or about him, I knew how matters were going on, and was always carrying the orders, now to Lieutenant Leigh, now to this sergeant or that corporal. At the first offset of the defence of the old place, there was a dispute between captain and lieutenant; and I’m afraid it was maintained by the last out of obstinacy, and just at a time when there should have been nothing but pulling together for the sake of all concerned. I must say, though, that there was right on both sides.

Lieutenant Leigh put it forward as his opinion that, short of men as we were, it was folly to keep four enemies under the same roof, who were likely at any time to overpower the one or two sentries placed over them; while, if there was nothing to fear in that way, there was still the shortening of our defensive forces by a couple of valuable men.

“What would you do with them, then?” said Captain Dyer.

“Set them at liberty,” said Lieutenant Leigh.