CHAPTER XXII THE LAST CHARGE With the order to charge trembling on his lips, Phil hesitated. What did the silence of the mission tell him? Had Commander Hughes succeeded in gaining an entrance, and had the mission ceased its fire by his order to allow the midshipman’s party to flank the battery so intent upon breaching the wall through which the savage horde would surge into the enclosure, butchering every Christian found there? He turned to O’Neil, lying quietly beside him in the high grass. Through many adventures the lad had become thoroughly convinced of the sailor’s good and calm judgment. He turned to him now, a grave fear in his mind that precious moments were slipping away, yet if he made a mistake and that withering fire should again be loosened, all would indeed be lost. “Are they waiting to allow us to advance?” he whispered, half rising to his feet. “Wait,” O’Neil cautioned; “if they know we’re here they’ll signal. See!” he added, his eyes fixed upon the mission. Even as he spoke, a bright light flamed suddenly above the wall, its appearance awakening the enemy to renewed action. Each of the hundred sailors turned his eyes expectantly toward the mission. The light burned brightly and then flickered regularly and evenly for a few seconds, again burning steadily. “You’re right; signal!” Phil exclaimed, straining his eyes to read the message which he knew would be spelled out by that flashing light. Slowly, painfully the bright point of light appeared and disappeared; all who knew the navy code were reading, with muscles tense and breath held tight, the encouraging words flashing to them from across the intervening darkness: “We are holding our fire.” There was small need to give the order to charge; every sailor in that impatient line in but a moment knew that those in the mission were waiting and trusting to them for deliverance from the murderous fire of the Chinese artillery. The lad rose to his feet, grasping his revolver firmly, and as one man the sailors swept forward. Three hundred yards ahead four pieces of modern artillery were battering away at the concrete wall of the mission, while dusky figures, believing their foe had been silenced, swarmed boldly over the grassy slopes behind and on either side of the guns. So noiselessly did Phil’s men advance that the enemy were even now ignorant of the presence of a foe so near at hand. “When we charge,” Langdon whispered breathlessly, “order the men to yell; the Chinese are as much afraid of noise as they are of bullets.” Phil had always trained his men in their drills to charge cheering. Now the time had arrived; in the next hundred yards the men would surely be exposed to the view and fire of their enemy; concealment then would not be an advantage; the Chinese should see and hear the danger in order to have it strike terror to their hearts. Raising his whistle to his lips, Phil blew a shrill blast.