“What are you going to do?” I asked as I obeyed.

“Show them some fireworks, I hope.  Bring the camels into the archway so that they can’t foul the wire with their feet.  So—­stand still, you grumbling brutes!  Now for these bolts.  Heavens! how stiff they are.  I wonder why the Fung don’t grease them.  One door will do—­never mind the other.”

Labouring furiously we got it undone and ajar.  So far as we could see there was no one in sight beyond.  Scared by our bullets or for other reasons of their own, the guard there appeared to have moved away.

“Shall we take the risk and ride for it?” I suggested.

“No,” answered Orme.  “If we do, even supposing there are no Fung waiting beyond the rise, those inside the town will soon catch us on their swift horses.  We must scare them before we bolt, and then those that are left of them may let us alone.  Now listen to me.  When I give the word, you two take the camels outside and make them kneel about fifty yards away, not nearer, for I don’t know the effective range of these new explosives; it may be greater than I think.  I shall wait until the Fung are well over the mine and then fire it, after which I hope to join you.  If I don’t, ride as hard as you can go to that White Rock, and if you reach Mur give my compliments to the Child of Kings, or whatever she is called, and say that although I have been prevented from waiting upon her, Sergeant Quick understands as much about picrates as I do.  Also get Shadrach tried and hanged if he is guilty of Higgs’s death.  Poor old Higgs! how he would have enjoyed this.”

“Beg your pardon, Captain,” said Quick, “but I’ll stay with you.  The doctor can see to the baggage animals.”

“Will you be good enough to obey orders and fall to the rear when you are told, Sergeant?  Now, no words.  It is necessary for the purposes of this expedition that one of us two should try to keep a whole skin.”

“Then, sir,” pleaded Quick, “mayn’t I take charge of the battery?”

“No,” he answered sternly.  “Ah! the doors are down at last,” and he pointed to a horde of Fung, mounted and on foot, who poured through the gateway where they had stood, shouting after their fashion, and went on:  “Now then, pick out the captains and pepper away.  I want to keep them back a bit, so that they come on in a crowd, not scattered.”

We took up our repeating rifles and did as Orme told us, and so dense was the mass of humanity opposite that if we missed one man, we hit another, killing or wounding a number of them.  The result of the loss of several of their leaders, to say nothing of meaner folk, was just what Orme had foreseen.  The Fung soldiers, instead of rushing on independently, spread to right and left, until the whole farther side of the square filled up with thousands of them, a veritable sea of men, at which we pelted bullets as boys hurl stones at a wave.

At length the pressure of those behind thrust onward those in front, and the whole fierce, tumultuous mob began to flow forward across the square, a multitude bent on the destruction of three white men, armed with these new and terrible weapons.  It was a very strange and thrilling sight; never have I seen its like.