Gunboat and Gun-runner: A Tale of the Persian GulfJeans, T. T. (Thomas Tendron)
General
Gunboat and Gun-runner: A Tale of the Persian Gulf
Jeans, T. T. (Thomas Tendron)
Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Fiction; Illegal arms transfers -- Fiction; Persian Gulf -- Fiction
"Hush!" she whispered; "keep still; you’re all right now. They’ve got
inside the walls and have gone off to burn down the other buildings. Mr.
Fisher is down below—most of the others too; we are safe for some time."
I remembered that Mr. Scarlett and all the rest of my men ought to be on
the outside of the wall, and wondered what had become of them.
"Mr. Scarlett?" I muttered, but she put a finger on my lips. "Be quiet;
be still."
The niggers and servants must have torn away some of the sand-bags to
make better openings to fire through or to take them somewhere else, for
the room now was filled with a red glare. The crackling noise of flames
seemed to grow more furious and closer; but above everything I heard
Hartley’s voice down below shouting orders.
It was a comfort even to know that he was there.
Then men began to climb the stairs outside the room, panting heavily and
running down again. Miss Borsen went out to see what they were doing.
She crept back, terrified.
"They’re carrying water up to the roof—the flames are so close. It’s
awful—awful!" and she crouched on the floor with her hands over her
eyes. She pulled herself together when Hartley—bleeding from a wound on
his head—rushed in to tell me that we were fairly safe for the present,
but that Ellis and a few natives on the top of that outbuilding, where
they had been all day, were cut off, and that no one knew what had
become of Mr. Scarlett and his party. "What with the moonlight and
these ’ere flames from the mess buildings," he said, "it’s as light as
day now, and the Afghans won’t come out in the open. They’re skulking
in the shadows under the walls, and daren’t run across the open spaces."
After this—for a time—there was but little rifle firing near us, and the
glare from the burning building died down somewhat. Outside on the
balcony I could see the Zanzibaris there moving about in the shadow
behind the sand-bags and peering over them to look below. Presently one
of them saw something to fire at, for he let off his rifle and called to
the others. A regular fusillade broke out, and in the midst of it I
heard, to my intense relief, Mr. Scarlett’s stentorian voice roaring
out: "Stop that firing," and then shouting something in Hindustani.
Before I realized what was the meaning of this Miss Borsen sprang to her
feet and was out on the balcony in a moment, pulling the wretched
servants and Zanzibaris away from the sand-bags and calling out: "Stop!
stop!
"It’s Mr. Scarlett and your men climbing over the loopholed wall," she
cried. "They are crawling over the corner just below us."
In a very few minutes Mr. Scarlett was standing in the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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