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Fascinated and helpless, Frank gazed, till a loud shouting drew his eyes to another group nearer to him, and there, bound and kneeling, with a spear-armed man in front and a dozen more behind, were some thirty of those who were never to look again upon the glory of the fast-sinking sun. But there was no struggling no sign of resistance.
Quick! there's no time to lose." Mark hesitated for a few moments. On the one side seemed to be safety; on the other, perhaps death from a set of spear-armed savages. Then he ground his teeth, and stood fast. "Well, why don't you go?" "I won't be such a coward," cried Mark in a hoarse whisper. "It is no cowardice to retreat," cried the major, "when your superior officer gives the word."
There was a burst of cheering here, of a rather barbaric nature, for from Rajah Suleiman's gathering there came one solitary boom from a particularly musical gong. This rang out like a signal, and was followed by a score more from as many of the sonorous instruments, supplemented by an excited yelling from the spear-armed men.
It does not need the dishevelled hair and torn dresses to show they are captives; nor yet the half-dozen savages, spear-armed, keeping guard over them. Their drooping heads, woeful and wan countenances, are too sure signs of their melancholy situation. What are these captives, and who their captors? Two questions easily answered. In a general way, the picture explains itself.
Mark caught up his heavy birds and ran back with the major to where the first they had shot lay, while from behind came another yell, and looking over his shoulder Mark saw that a spear-armed figure was coming rapidly in pursuit. They had not far to go, but in a hot sun, and with the double guns, ammunition, and the heavy birds, they were panting and in a profuse perspiration.
As the strength of a European force lies in the occupation of and in movement over open ground, which gives it advantage of fire, so the strength of a dervish force lies in fighting in depressions of the ground, or in a jungle country out of which they can pour suddenly and quickly their thousands of spear-armed warriors, who, unless checked by a murderous fire, constitute a grave danger, even to a perfectly disciplined force.
When a man sees a file of spear-armed savages, or a pair of snorty old rhinos, step out into what has seemed practically his own back yard home, he is even more startled than if he had encountered them in quite strange surroundings. We rode into the grass meadow and picked camp site. The men trailed in and dumped down their loads in a row. At a signal they set to work.
Sometimes a fierce demonstration was made by spear-armed men, who came boldly up as if to attack, but soon fell back unmolested, for Captain Smithers felt that no end was to be obtained by simply shooting down a few of the enemy, and his orders were to reserve fire till a fiercer attack was made.
"Then remove these people to the place where they were, and afterward admit him without his guards!" "I demand permission to speak with this Alwa-sahib!" said McClean. "Remove them!" Two spear-armed custodians of the door advanced. Resistance was obviously futile.
The Yankee ships were grass-grown and barnacled, but now they were driven as never before since their trial trips. The Spaniards had called us pigs, but Nemesis had turned us into spear-armed huntsmen in chase of game that neither tusks nor legs could save.
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