Sunman, the mate, was one of the first victims; he fell to a shot from Bulger. But Parmiter and Diggle, followed by half a dozen of the sailors, and a score of the more determined lathiwallahs and musketeers with clubbed muskets, succeeded in clambering to the top of the carts and prepared to jump down among the defenders, most of whom were busily engaged in jabbing at the men swarming in between the wheels. Desmond saw that if his barricade was once broken through the issue of the fight must be decided by mere weight of numbers. "Bulger, here!" he cried, "and you, Hossain." The men sprang to him, and, following his example, leaped on to the cart next to that occupied by Diggle and Parmiter. Desmond's intention was to take them in flank. Jumping over the bales of silk, he swung over his head a matchlock he had seized from one of his peons, and brought it down with a horizontal sweep. Two of the Bengalis among the crowd of lathiwallahs, who were hanging back out of reach of the boatmen's pikes, were swept off the cart. But the violence of his blow disturbed Desmond's own balance; he fell on one knee; his matchlock was seized and jerked out of his hand; and in a second three men were upon him. Bulger and the serang, although a little late, owing to want of agility in scaling the cart, were close behind. "Belay there!" roared Bulger, as he flung himself upon the combatants. The bullet head of one sturdy badmash cracked like an eggshell under the butt of the bold tar's musket; a second received the terrible hook square in the teeth; and a third, no other than Parmiter himself, was caught round the neck at the next lunge of the hook, and flung, with a mighty heave, full into the midst of the defenders. Bulger drew a long breath. At the same moment Diggle, attacked by the serang, was thrown from his perch on the hackeri and fell among his followers outside the barricade. There was a moment's lull while both parties recovered their wind. Firing had ceased; to load a matchlock was a long affair, and though the attackers might have divided and come forward in relays with loaded weapons, they would have run the risk of hitting their own friends. It was to be again a hand-to-hand fight. Diggle was not to be denied. Desmond, who had jumped down inside the barricade when the pressure was relieved by Bulger, could not but admire the spirit and determination of his old enemy, though it boded ill for his own chance of escape. He was weary; worn out by want of rest and food; almost prostrated by the terrible heat. Looking round his little fort, he felt a tremor as he saw that five out of his twenty-four men were more or less disabled. True, there were now more than a dozen of the enemy in the same or a worse plight; but they could afford their losses, and Desmond indeed wondered why Diggle did not sacrifice a few men in one fierce overwhelming onslaught.