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Herr Schulz slipped a Browning pistol into the breast-pocket of his jacket and, producing a long-barrelled service revolver, gave it to the doctor. "There are three of them, I gather, counting the chauffeur," commented the big man, pulling on his overcoat, "so we shall be equally matched."
This thoroughly aroused me, and without stirring my body I slowly turned my head, when to my astonishment I beheld Kouaga, standing erect with arms folded beneath his white burnouse, talking in an undertone to a dark-bearded stranger who also wore flowing Arab garments and bore in his hand a long-barrelled flint-lock gun with quaintly-inlaid stock.
He fell asleep soon after, and this time his sleep was longer, though not so deep... He was watching hawks flying in pursuit of a heron when a measured tramp of hooves awoke him, and hard, guttural voices. "The Arabs have arrived," he said, and drawing aside the curtain of his tent, he saw at least twenty coming through the blue dusk, white bournous, scimitars, and long-barrelled guns!
He still held his long-barrelled rifle, which he presented at whoever neared him. "I tell you, look out!" he kept saying over and over. "I'm shootin' lunatics to-day; and apparently there's plenty game to choose from." We should all have liked to start right in digging, but Bagsby strenuously opposed this.
This chase was not successful; but early one morning, going to look for wild geese in the water-meadow with his long-barrelled gun, he saw something in a lonely rickyard. Creeping cautiously up, he rested the heavy gun on an ash stole, and the big duck-shot tore its way into the stag's shoulder. Those days were gone, but still his interest in shooting was unabated.
The Northerner was named Rogers, but was invariably known as Yank. The Southerner had some such name as Fairfax, but was called Johnny, and later in California, for reasons that will appear, Diamond Jack. Yank's distinguishing feature was a long-barrelled "pea shooter" rifle. He never moved ten feet without it. Johnny usually did most of the talking when we were all gathered together.
He also found powder and bullets in the case, and he wondered whether or not he would ever be able to shoot anybody with one of those heavy, long-barrelled things without having something to rest it on. "I practised for an hour once in a pistol-gallery," he remarked, "but it wasn't with anything like that." "You didn't hit centre even then, eh?" laughed the señor.
Later on, in the middle of the sixteenth century, we hear of the long-barrelled harquebus being used in Spain, and before the close of the century the muschite was in use in the English army. This was a heavier weapon than the harquebus, and the soldiers were provided with a long spiked stake with a fork at the upper end in which to rest the ponderous barrel whilst they took aim.
The colonel's hand was in his hip-pocket when he thought better and raised both hands in the air. There was something peculiarly businesslike in the long-barrelled revolver which the intruder held, in spite of the silver-plating and the gold inlay along the chased barrel. "Everybody's hands in the air," said the Jack shrilly, "right up to the beautiful sky! Yours too, Lollie.
Observing the absence of the familiar long-barrelled gun, I persist in my purpose of interviewing him regarding the road, and finally learn from him that the village of Goonabad is eight miles farther south, and that the trail will be easier followed when I reach the hills.
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