Across the Cameroons: A Story of War and Adventure

Harry Urquhart turned and was about to enter the hut, when he was brought to an abrupt standstill. He stood motionless and gaping, unable at first to believe the evidence of his own eyes. For there, in the doorway, within the enclosure of the fort, stood the figure of a man-a man who was dressed in robes of flowing white.

"The Black Dog!" let out the guide, and brought his rifle to his shoulder.

"Peace," said the sheikh, lifting a hand. "Think before you fire."

Fernando's rifle was directed straight at the man's heart. The Arab never flinched. He stood like a statue, speaking in the slow, deliberate tones of one who is in full possession of his senses.

"If you fire," said he, "you slay one who has come to place his services at your disposal. You are surrounded by a legion of foes. Every rifle counts. I bring you aid."

Slowly Fernando lowered his rifle; then he laughed.

"We do not want your aid," said he.

"There," answered Bayram, "you are wrong."

"How so?"

"Here you are imprisoned. You must fight to the end. There can be no question of surrender."

"We do not think of surrender," said the other. "We mean to escape by the way you came. We mean to escape to-night."

The Black Dog shook his head.

"That will not be so easy," he made answer. "The Germans are receiving reinforcements; another column is advancing from the south. The bush swarms with their reconnoitring-parties and patrols. Moreover, guns are approaching up the valley, and may be here at any moment. I speak the truth. Remember, at some risk I have come here of my own accord."

He spoke slowly, as if choosing his words with care; but his English accent was singularly good.

"You have not yet told us," said Harry Urquhart, "why you have come."

"You are short of ammunition," answered the sheikh.

"How do you know that?"

"For five days I have listened to every shot."

"You have not yet explained," said Harry.

The Black Dog smiled, his white teeth showing in the midst of the blackness of his beard.

"I come with a proposal," said he, "under a flag of truce."

"You have nothing to fear," cut in Fernando. "You speak of a truce. We are men of honour."

"Very well, then," said the sheikh, "my proposal-or rather the proposal of him who sent me-is that your party and mine agree to come to terms. You have run out of ammunition; we can supply you. Boxes of ammunition can be conveyed without difficulty through the tunnel. Moreover, in order to cover your retreat, I swear by Allah that I will lead the Germans on a false scent across the mountains to the east."

"And in exchange for these services?" asked Harry.

The Black Dog paused, looking hard at Fernando.

"In exchange for these services," he repeated, "you are to desist from the pursuit, to allow my employer and myself to pass unmolested in Maziriland."

At this base suggestion, a feeling of such powerful indignation arose in Harry Urquhart that for some moments he could not find his voice. When he spoke at last, his voice trembled with passion.

"You can go back to Captain von Hardenberg," said he, "and you can tell him from me that he has often enough proved himself a rascal, but that I never thought that he would sink to such perfidy as to offer us ammunition to be used against his own countrymen in exchange for his own safety. As for you, it is only because you came here of your own free will that you are allowed to go away in safety. You took us evidently both for cowards and fools. You know now, perhaps, that we are neither one nor the other. But there is a limit to our patience, and I advise you to leave by the way you came as quickly as you can."

The Black Dog drew himself up to his full height, folded his arms, and fixed upon Harry Urquhart his cruel bloodshot eyes.

"These are high words," said he, "to one who has been the master of a thousand slaves. You have asked for war to the knife, and you shall have it. It is apparent from the way in which you speak that you know little or nothing of the man with whom you have to deal. You shall see. I shall prove to you that I am not one who uses empty words."

At that he turned sharply on his heel, entered the hut, and was gone.

CHAPTER XXI-The Last Cartridge

During the next four days the siege continued, and though their enemies continued to increase in numbers, the Germans were fortunately still without artillery, which would have battered the old fort to dust and ashes in the space of half an hour.

On each occasion when the Germans ventured to assault they were driven back with considerable loss. Indeed, their dead lay so thick upon the path upon the hill-side that those who followed after mounted on the bodies of those who had gone before.

On one occasion a company of native troops actually gained the parapet of the fort. It was a dark night, and they had crept up the hill-side unobserved. With a savage yell, and as one man, they hurled themselves upon the ramparts.

The majority were thrown back in disorder under a brisk fire from the defence, but some half-dozen leapt the ditch and clambered over the wall. Thereupon a brief hand-to-hand encounter ensued. It was an affair of seconds, of fierce cries and groans and savage oaths, and in the end the enclosure of the fort was free of the enemy-except for six motionless forms that lay silent on the ground.

Days passed, and still the defence held out. Indeed, they had actually put off their retreat until too late, for one night they were brought face to face with the unexpected fact that the Germans had discovered the entrance to the tunnel. Fernando, who had passed almost to the mouth of the tunnel, which lay in the midst of the bush, returned to the fort with the news that a large party of German regular soldiers was guarding their only line of retreat. Fernando had little doubt that the Black Dog had found some means by which to betray them.

The Germans apparently hesitated to advance through the tunnel itself, since they were still in ignorance of the strength of the little garrison; and in any case the narrowness and exceeding darkness of the passage would make an advance an extremely costly affair, whereas ultimate success was by no means assured. They could no longer be blind to the fact that those in the fort were running short of ammunition, and they could afford to play a waiting game.

The situation of Harry Urquhart and his companions was not of the pleasantest; indeed, they could no longer hope. Even Fernando, who had so often proved himself a man of iron, could see no chance of their deliverance.

As a great storm drives up upon the wind, so this tragedy drew to a close. Every round of ammunition-fired in self-defence-every mouthful of food that was eaten, brought it a step nearer the end. They were surrounded on every hand. Great numbers of the enemy had come from the south; both German and native troops were in the district in battalions, with transport and ammunition columns and machine-guns.

By then it was manifest that the Germans could capture the fort whenever they wished, provided they made the necessary sacrifice in lives-a thing which, as a rule, it is not their custom to hesitate to do. They had not yet, however, deployed their whole strength against the garrison-a fact that Harry was not able to explain.

The blow, which they had anticipated for days, fell upon a certain morning, soon after daybreak, when the Germans, their whole force in the valley, advanced in close formation upon the fort.

At the same time a battery of artillery opened fire from the neighbouring hills, and the immediate vicinity of the fort became a pandemonium of dust and smoke and flying stones and masonry, whereas the defenders were well-nigh deafened by the bursting of high-explosive shells.

In spite of this hurricane of lead and steel, time and again shots sounded from the fort; but the great wave came on, overwhelming and irresistible. One behind the other the ranks mounted the path. The defenders kept up a withering fire, until the barrels of their rifles were so hot they could not touch them. And still the enemy advanced.

As the Germans gathered themselves together for a final charge, Harry, Jim Braid, and the half-caste rushed together from the parapet to the only box of ammunition that remained. The box lay open near the door of the hut. Fernando was the first to reach it.

He pulled up sharply, standing motionless and erect. Then he knelt down and took out from the box the only cartridge that was there.

"This is all that is left," said he.

"No more?" cried Harry.

"We have come to the end," said the guide.

Jim Braid turned and addressed his companions.