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Then to the docks they went, to fulfil, if possible, their mission, which was not archaeological research, but to follow their infantry to the north. They searched along the quays to see if any possibility offered of slipping aboard an outbound transport. Alas, the only vessel there cast off while they, barred by a hopeless line of sentries, gazed sadly on.
Just then one of the boys came in and reported that everybody in the Masai camp, with the exception of the two sentries who were walking up and down in front of the respective entrances, appeared to be fast asleep. Then the rest of us took the road. First came the guide, then Sir Henry, Umslopogaas, the Wakwafi Askari, and Mr Mackenzie's two mission natives armed with long spears and shields.
Massive fortifications, with guns grinning from the embrasures, form a very prominent feature; a broad glacis looks peaceful in its greenness; ramparts line the Plains of Abraham; guards and sentries appear in all directions; nightfall brings with it the challenge "Who goes there?" and narrow gateways form inconvenient entrances to streets so steep that I wondered how mortal horses could ever toil up them.
Troop A would surely be here. It was daybreak, the dawn of the Fourth of July, when the sound of a bugle aroused the miners of the Yellow Jacket. Some thought it was some patriotic Yankee, but the clang, clang, of the old bell at the stone tower, the calls of the sentries, the rush of hundreds of half-dressed, excited men down the street, told everyone that trouble was in the air.
Jean Bouvard and Guy were with him, while Long Tom moved round and round the walls to gather news from his sentries. Sometimes Guy accompanied him. "They are moving," Tom the archer said as he stood listening intently on the wall at the rear of the castle. "It is an hour past sundown, and about the time the knaves will be mustering if they intend to make a regular attack on us.
To a brother officer Churchill confided his purpose, and together they agreed that some night when the sentries had turned from the dark spot on the wall they would scale it and drop among the bushes in the garden. After they reached the garden, should they reach it alive, what they were to do they did not know.
Far down by the stables she could hear the ringing watch-call of the sentries proclaiming half-past twelve o'clock and all well, and then and then as a cloud floated away and the bright beams poured down in unhindered radiance, she became aware of a form enveloped in a cavalry overcoat standing in the corner of the fence.
Ride up to their camp an' say, 'We know wheah at theah's some bushwhackers, come'n see'?" Webb asked scornfully. "After this mornin' they won't even listen to a truce flag, I'm thinkin'." Croff nodded. "That's right." "Supposin' those sentries we passed back there were knocked out and two of us took their places and the other two then laid a trail leadin' here?"
It is needless to say all this flowed not from the healthy cheer of a heart at ease, but from the excited and almost feverish sense of sudden relief. Next morning, Marston rode into the old-fashioned town, at the further end of which the dingy and grated front of the jail looked warningly out upon the rustic passengers. He passed the sentries and made his inquiries of the official at the hatch.
It is characteristic of this country that Saragossa should be guarded during the day by the toll-takers at every gate, by sentries, and by the new police, while at night the streets are given over to the care of a handful of night watchmen, who call monotonously to each other all through the hours, and may be avoided by the simplest-minded of malefactors.
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