With a sense of all this, but no clear sense of action, Rudolph found the side-door, opened it, closed it, and started across the lane.  He knew only that he should reach the mafoo’s little gate by the pony-shed, and step out of these dark ages into the friendly present; so that when something from the wall blazed point-blank, and he fell flat on the ground, he lay in utter defeat, bitterly surprised and offended.  His own friends:  they might miss him once, but not twice.  Let it come quickly.

Instead, from the darkness above came the most welcome sound he had ever known,—­a keen, high voice, scolding.

“What the devil are you firing at?” It was Heywood, somewhere on the roof of the pony-shed.  He put the question sharply, yet sounded cool and cheerful.  “A shadow?  Rot!  You waste another cartridge so, and I’ll take your gun away.  Remember that!”

Nesbit’s voice clipped out some pert objection.

“Potted the beggar, any’ow—­see for yourself—­go-down ’s afire.”

“Saves us the trouble of burning it.”  The other voice moved away, with a parting rebuke.  “No more of that, sniping and squandering.  Wait till they rush you.”

Rudolph lifted his head from the dust.

“Maurice!” he called feebly.  “Maurice, let me in!”

“Hallo!” answered his captain on the wall, blithely.  “Steady on, we’ll get you.”

Of all hardships, this brief delay was least bearable.  Then a bight of rope fell across Rudolph’s back.  He seized it, hauled taut, and planting his feet against the wall, went up like a fish, to land gasping on a row of sand-bags.

“Ho, you wandering German!” His invisible friend clapped him on the shoulder.  “By Jove, I’m glad.  No time to burble now, though.  Off with you.  Compradore has a gun for you, in the court.  Collect a drink as you go by.  Report to Kneebone at the northeast corner.  Danger point there:  we need a good man, so hurry.  Devilish glad.  Cut along.”

Rudolph, scrambling down from the pony-shed, ran across the compound with his head in a whirl.  Yet through all the scudding darkness and confusion, one fact had pierced as bright as a star.  On this night of alarms, he had turned the great corner in his life.  Like the pale stranger with his crown of fire, he could finish the course.

He caught his rifle from the compradore’s hand, but needed no draught from any earthly cup.  Brushing through the orange trees, he made for the northeast angle, free of all longing perplexities, purged of all vile admiration, and fit to join his friends in clean and wholesome danger.

CHAPTER XVIII

SIEGE

He never believed that they could hold the northeast corner for a minute, so loud and unceasing was the uproar.  Bullets spattered sharply along the wall and sang overhead, mixed now and then with an indescribable whistling and jingling.  The angle was like the prow of a ship cutting forward into a gale.  Yet Rudolph climbed, rejoicing, up the short bamboo ladder, to the platform which his coolies had built in such haste, so long ago, that afternoon.