"Choose for yourselves," he cried, so that all could hear. "Do you think that those ruffians outside will spare a single one of you if you crouch and offer no resistance. They will kill you in their own particular manner. Fight while you have the opportunity. Come to the gateway, and stand shoulder to shoulder with us. We can still keep them out, and in a little while we shall have a barrier behind which we can fight." It was very fortunate for the defenders that the Mahratta horsemen outside did not dash forward at once to capture the place, for had they come on the instant the explosion had occurred they would have burst their way in without encountering any but the feeblest opposition. But the men outside chose a very different course. While not lacking in dash at other times, they were notoriously more venturesome when attacking helpless villagers than when engaged with an enemy able to return hard knocks for those which were given. Indeed, our former campaigns with the Mahrattas had proved that this race of freebooters were as a whole somewhat deficient in courage, and it was this very deficiency which proved the salvation of those within the fort. The Mahrattas held back, for the prowess of a single Englishman was sufficient to cool their ardour, and Owen had already proved to them that he could fight. They galloped backwards and forwards before the gateway, shouting defiantly and waving their tulwars above their heads, while those who had dismounted earlier contented themselves with a desultory fire, their bullets sweeping in through the opening. Owen and Mulha made the most of the delay. By dint of setting a gallant example, by persuasion and almost by compulsion, they gathered the peons about them, and bidding them lie flat on the ground urged them to push what remained of their barrier into position. Then the men, whom the aged owner of the place had taken with him, came running from the house with bales of cloth, sacks of grain and rice, and any bulky package which would serve the purpose. "Let them run over to the side wall, and then come along at the foot of the wall in which the rent is," Owen shouted. "They will escape the bullets by doing so. Ah, those fellows outside are troublesome!" he exclaimed, as one of the unfortunate peons, emerging into the courtyard with a sack of rice on his shoulders, suddenly pitched forward on to his face and lay there with arms and legs outstretched. "We must keep their fire down. Mulha, send four of the men whom you judge to be cool and the best shots to the top of the wall. They can fire from behind the defences we built up. Hurry, now! They are collecting to attack us. We must have everything in readiness."