"Hallo! They’re getting desperate," he said to Ferrier. He immediately brought up all the men who had firearms and placed them at the gap in the wall, bidding them keep under cover and fire when he gave the word. The yelling horde were met by a volley just as they reached the landward end of the causeway; but though several men dropped it did not check the rush, and John concluded from their intense excitement that they had been stimulating their courage with fermented liquor. Some sprang on to the causeway, and began to run across it; others took to the water, which soon swarmed with black heads moving towards the fort. The garrison fired as fast as they could reload, but the men rushing in single file along the causeway did not present a good target, and the swimmers were far too numerous to be dealt with by a dropping fire from the wall. The defenders in their turn were how the mark for a fusillade from the further shore of the pool, where several Swahilis had taken up their position, finding a little shelter in the reeds, and doing their best to cover the attack of the natives. John looked eagerly among them for the big form of Juma, resolving if he saw him to pick him off; the fall of their leader might demoralize or dishearten the rest. But Juma never came in sight; apparently he was directing the movement from a place of safety in the rear. The men running across the causeway sprang into the water when they came to the gap from which the bridge had been removed, and, swimming under water, sought to scramble on to the narrow shelf of land which ran beneath the wall at this part. At the same time those who had swum round on either side were swarming on hands and knees up the steep bank. The attack began to look more serious than John had anticipated. There were several hundreds of the assailants, and to meet these he had but forty-three, of whom only ten had rifles. The difficulty was increased by the fact that when the enemy succeeded, as some of them did, in effecting a lodgment, it was necessary that his men should show themselves above the wall in order to shoot down upon them, thus becoming exposed to the fire from the Swahilis. Leaving his riflemen at the gap to deal with the men who came over the causeway and to keep down as much as possible the fire from the shore, John ran with Ferrier to whatever part of the wall was at the moment the most seriously threatened. He had already proved the poor marksmanship of the Swahilis, and, seeing that the enemy must be prevented at all costs from entering the fort, he no longer troubled to seek cover, but ordered the men to mount the wall and make the most of their advantage in being several feet above their attackers. Ferrier and he, fully exposed to the enemy’s fire, ran from place to place encouraging the men, grasping their rifles by the barrel so as to use them as clubs if any of the storming party came near the top of the wall.