At the Point of the Bayonet: A Tale of the Mahratta War

"Tomorrow," he said, "they will take up the search in earnest, and will track our footsteps. We had better take to a tree, now. It will not be safe to stay here."

The others cordially agreed as, for some time, they had heard the roars of wild beasts, which abounded in these forests; and Harry and Abdool had run with their open knives in their hands, prepared for a sudden attack.

"The others will have gone back to the village, long ago," the Malay said, when they had made themselves as comfortable as they could, in the forks of the tree, "except the men who were guarding us. They will not dare venture into the village, for they would fear the rajah's anger, even more than death from a tiger. They will be first in the search, tomorrow morning.

"Which way do you wish to go, my lord?"

"I have been thinking it over, as we came. I think that our best plan will be to go on to Johore. Doubtless the road down the coast will be watched. How far from Johore do you think we are?"

"Not very far," the Malay said. "We have been going in that direction, ever since we first turned–not very straight, perhaps, but certainly in that direction. I think that we cannot be more than five or six miles from the town. It lies between the hills we crossed, and the higher ones beyond. We have been descending a little, all the time."

"I am afraid that Johore will not be very pleased to see us arriving empty handed, and to learn that the escort he sent us have all been killed. Still, the news that we bring him, that his enemies are not far off, will be useful to him; and we will offer to aid him in the defence of his town, if he is attacked. At any rate, it is a satisfaction to know that we have not very far to go, and have got so good a start of the fellows behind us that they are not likely to overtake us, before we get there."

More than once, during the night, they heard angry growling at the foot of the tree. Towards morning there was a scraping sound.

"That is a leopard, sahib," the Malay said, in alarm; "he is climbing the tree to get at us."

Abdool was sitting immediately below Harry, and the latter called to him to come up beside him.

"Mount as high as you can, my lord," the Malay said. "The trunk is not so rough, when you get higher; and the beast will find it harder to climb."

"We shall do better, here," Harry said. "These two arms, nearly opposite to each other, are just the thing for us.

"You go out to the end of one, Abdool, and I will go out to the end of the other. We will climb out as far as we can, and then he will have to follow us very slowly, whichever way he chooses. If he goes for you, I will follow him. If he comes my way, you follow him. When the bough gets thin he won't be able to turn round, and the one behind can give him a sudden stab, which will make him leave go his hold."

By the time he had finished speaking, they were each far out on their respective branches, and the leopard was close to the fork. It paused a moment, looked at the two men and, after a moment's hesitation, began to crawl out towards Abdool. Harry at once made his way back to the trunk, and then followed the animal.

Abdool had gone out as far as he dared and, holding on tightly, swayed the end of the branch up and down. The leopard, as it approached him, was evidently disconcerted; and clung to the bough, which was scarcely six inches in diameter at the point it had reached. It snarled angrily, as it became conscious that it was being followed.

Harry, feeling convinced that it could not turn, came fearlessly up to it, and then struck his knife into its loin. As the blade was but some four inches long, he had no hope of striking a vital point.

The leopard uttered a roar, and tried to turn and strike at him with one of its forepaws; but the blade again penetrated to its full depth, this time on the other side and, with a start, it lost its footing, clung for a moment to the branch with its forepaws, and strove to regain its hold; but Harry brought his knife down, again and again, on one of its paws.

Abdool, crawling in, quickly struck it under the shoulder and, a moment later, it released its hold and fell heavily through the foliage to the ground. For a time it was heard roaring, and then the sound came only at intervals, and at an increasing distance.

"That was a good business, Abdool," Harry said, as they returned to their former post, where the Malay rejoined them.

"It was well done, indeed, sahib. When I heard the beast climbing the tree, it seemed to me that, as we had no weapons except these little knives, he would surely make an end of one of us."

The interpreter did not understand Mahratti, in which Abdool and Harry always conversed; but he said in Hindustani:

"I have seen fights with leopards, my lord, but even with krises, two of my people would hesitate to attack one–they fear them more than tigers–but little did I think that two men, with small knives, could save their lives from one. My blood turned to water, as I saw the beast climbing out on that bough, and you going out after it."

"I have done a good deal of tiger and leopard hunting, in my time," Harry said, "and know that a leopard cannot spring from a bough, unless it is a fairly stout one–stout enough for it to stand with all its paws upon it.

"Well, the day is beginning to break. In half an hour's time the sun will be up, and the wild beasts will have all retired to their lairs. I hope we shall see no more of them. It is all very well to fight under such advantages; but on foot, were a tiger hiding near a path, he would be sure to have one of us as we went along. Our knives would not do more than tickle him."

Chapter 12: The Defence Of Johore

Half an hour later, the little party were on their way. They were stiff, at first, from passing the night in a sitting attitude; but it was not long before they were able to break into a trot. This they kept up for an hour then, to their great satisfaction, the forest abruptly ceased, and they saw, at a distance of about a mile and a half, the little town of Johore, lying in cultivated fields that extended to the edge of the forest.

They broke into a walk, for a short distance; and then continued at their former pace, for they could not tell how close their pursuers might be behind them. It was not long before they saw men at work in the fields. The interpreter shouted to them that a party of the enemy were not far behind and, throwing down their tools, they also made for the town, spreading the alarm as they went. Fresh and fleet footed, they arrived some minutes before Harry's party and, as these entered the place, they found the whole population in the street, the men armed with spears and krises.

Asking the way, they soon reached the rajah's palace, which consisted of a central house, round which a number of huts were built; the whole surrounded by a stone wall, some eight feet high. The rajah, when they arrived, was questioning some of his people as to the cause of this sudden alarm. He was greatly surprised at the sight of Harry, in his full uniform, attended only by one soldier and a native.

"How comes it that you arrive like this?" he asked, angrily.

"Explain what has happened," Harry said, to the interpreter.

The rajah's brow darkened, as he heard how the escort he had sent down had been slain, to a man, on the previous day. But his excitement increased, when told that a strong force of his enemy was gathered within a few miles of the town; and that an assault might be immediately expected.

"Will you tell the rajah that I am used to warfare, and shall be glad to assist him, to the best of my power, in the defence of his town?"

"How many men were there?" the rajah asked.

"I should think there were a couple of thousand," Harry replied. "Some of them had matchlocks, but the greater part of them only spear and kris."

"And we have not more than five hundred," the rajah said. "We cannot hope to resist them. What think you?"

"I will at once go round the town, and see," Harry said. "It may be that, being accustomed to war, I can suggest some means of so strengthening the defences that we may hold them against the enemy."

The rajah, having heard many tales of the fighting powers of the whites, said:

"I will go with you. I would defend the place if I could for, if Johore were lost, I should be but a fugitive. All within it would be killed, and I should have to beg an asylum from those over whom I was once master."

Calling a party of his men to follow him, the rajah accompanied Harry to the edge of the town. It was already surrounded by a palisade; but this was of no great strength, and its circumference was fully a mile and a half.

"Tell the rajah that we could make a first defence, here, but his fighting men are not numerous enough to hold so large a circuit against four times their number. I should suggest that the whole population should be set to work to build another palisade, much nearer to the palace. All the women and children should be sent inside this, all the provisions in the town be taken into the palace enclosure, and a large supply of water stored there.

"As soon as the new palisade is finished, all who can be spared from its defence should set to work to throw up a bank of earth against the wall; and upon this the fighting men can take their places, and should be able to defend the palace against any assault."

The rajah listened attentively to the interpreter.

"The English officer's words are good," he said, "but we have no timber for the palisades that he speaks of."

"Tell the rajah," Harry said, when this was interpreted to him, "that there is plenty of wood and bamboos in the huts that stand outside the line of the new palisade; and that if we pull these down, we can use the materials. Moreover, in any case it would be well to level these houses for, if the enemy fired them, it would be almost certain to fire the houses inside the palisade."

The rajah's face brightened. The tone of assurance in which Harry spoke reassured him, and he said to the interpreter:

"Tell the officer that my people shall do just as he tells them, if he will point out where the defence must be erected."

Harry was not long in fixing upon the line for the entrenchments. It was some two hundred yards in diameter and, at the rajah's orders, the whole of the men and women of the town set to work, to pull down the huts standing within fifty or sixty yards of this. This was the work of a couple of hours, and the materials were carried up to the line. The stronger timbers were first planted, in holes dug for them; and the intervals between these were filled with bamboo poles. On the inside face other bamboos were lashed, with rattans across them. As fast as these were used, more houses were pulled down, until the defence was completed, the crossbars being some nine inches apart.

This work performed, the men, women and children brought up what provisions they had, and their most precious belongings. These were carried inside the wall of the palace. It was two o'clock before the work was finished, and there was then a rest for half an hour.

Then all were set to work to dig a trench, three feet deep with perpendicular sides, at a distance of two feet from the palisade. A large store of bamboos that had been too slender for use in the palisade were sharpened, and cut into lengths of two feet; and these were planted, thickly, in the bottom of the trench. Others, five feet long, were sharpened and then thrust through the interstices between the upright bamboos; the ends being fixed firmly in the ground inside, while the sharpened points projected like a row of bayonets, at a height of some two feet above the edge of the ditch.

It was nightfall before the work was finished. The rajah had, himself, been all the time upon the spot; and was delighted when he saw how formidable was the obstacle that had been raised. One small entrance, alone, had been left; and through this all the women and children now passed, and lay down in the space between the new palisade and the wall of the palace.