Now that their advance was known, the Kachins gave up their silence. The bearers began to shout to give each other the time and to make their movements regular and swift. "Ai-ai-Ai!" they shouted. On the last cry they all lifted and swung the barricade a step forward, "Ai-ai-Ai!" On they came again, "Ai-ai-Ai!" Another swing of their burden, and so they cut down the distance foot by foot, and the blood-thirsty little men who crawled after them felt the edges of their _dahs_ and promised to dull the shine of the great blades in the blood of the English sahibs who had shot so many of their friends. In the building, Jack and his comrades were at their wits' end to know what to do in order to check this deadly advance. "They're standing us off easily enough," cried Jack. "At the rate they're coming, they'll be up to the door in a quarter of an hour, and then they'll swarm straight in on us. These bullets are too light to check them." Suddenly he turned on Dent, his bright eyes flashing. "Jim, Jim!" he cried, "what are we thinking of? Didn't you pack a heavy big-game rifle among the baggage?" Jim Dent leapt as if he had been shot. "Of course I did," he roared. "I put it in on chance of being useful if we had trouble with tigers or a rogue elephant." He darted across to the baggage ponies, who had been tethered in a far corner of the large room, and swiftly cut a case loose. He unstrapped it and drew out an eight-bore rifle, a big powerful weapon. In a corner of the case was a package of the cartridges which fitted the rifle. Jim caught up the packet and ran back to his window. "The very thing," he breathed in the utmost excitement, "and I stood here like a dummy and never remembered it was with us till you thought of it, Jack. Unless they've got some very stiff stuff in yonder palisade, I'll send a bullet through it as if it was only paper. I've tried this gun with nickel-covered bullets such as these, and sent the bullet through eight one-inch teak planks and five inches of wet sawdust." "That ought to be good enough," cried Buck. "Pipe the lead into 'em, Jim, and me and Jack will watch for any you drive out of cover if your bullet goes through." "If," snorted Jim, as he threw open the breech and slipped in the big cartridge, "I'll show you." He threw the elephant gun forward and fired at the centre of the palisade. There was an instant scream. The immensely powerful weapon had driven the bullet straight through the centre of a palm log, through the body of the dacoit behind, and wounded one of the party following up. Jim whipped open the breech, and the empty shell flew out, for the rifle was an ejector. His practised hands had another cartridge in and the breech closed in an instant. He fired again and then again, aiming each time at a different spot in the palisade. There was a roar of anger from the hidden Kachins, a roar answered by an exultant shout from the besieged.