from the other three sides to that one. Bring those birds down from their trees quickly. . . . Brandt, up with you on to the look-out platform. Quick. . . ."
I glanced round as I charged my magazine afresh. Brandt looked at the platform and then at Lejaune. Lejaune's hand went to the revolver in the holster at his belt, and Brandt climbed the ladder, and started firing as quickly as he could work the bolt of his rifle.
Michael was still on his feet, but, as I turned back, I saw his neighbour spin round and crash down, clutching with both streaming hands at his throat.
When I took another swift glance later, the man had been wedged into the embrasure and posed by Lejaune as a living defender of the fort.
Soon afterwards I heard a shout from above, and turning, saw Brandt stagger backwards on the high platform. He struck the railing, toppled over, and came with a horrible crash to the roof.
"Find a good place for that carrion, Sergeant Dupré," shouted Lejaune. "Make him ornamental if he can't be useful."
I then heard him call the name of Haff.
"Up you go, Haff," he shouted. "You're another of these brave risque touts. Up you go!"
Schwartz, Brandt, Haff! Doubtless the next would be Delarey and Vogué. . . . And then Colonna, Gotto, and Bolidar. . . . Guantaio was dead. . . . Why didn't he send Michael up there? Presumably he hoped to keep him, St. André, Cordier, Maris, and me alive until the mutineer ringleaders and the diamond-stealers were dead. . . . He wouldn't want to be left victorious over the Arabs, only to find himself defenceless in the hands of the mutineers and the thieves.
I glanced up at Haff and saw that he was lying behind Schwartz's body, and firing over it as though it were a parapet along the edge of the platform.
I wondered how long this second phase of the fight had lasted, and whether we could hold out till night fell and the Arabs could not see to shoot. . . . Would they shoot by moonlight? It was unlikely, the Arab being, as a rule, averse from any sort of night work except peaceful travelling. A dawn rush is his favourite manoeuvre. . . .
It was agony to fire my rifle, for my head ached with one of those terrible eye-strain heat-stroke pains that give the feeling that the head is opening and shutting, exposing the brain. Every explosion of my rifle was like a blow on the head with a heavy hammer. I had almost come to the end of my tether when once again the fire of the Arabs slackened and dwindled and died away.
On the "Cease fire" bugle being ordered by Lejaune, I straightened up. I looked round as the words, "Unload! Stand easy!" rang out.
Michael was all right, but a good half of the garrison was dead or dying, for quite half the men remained partly standing, partly lying, wedged into their embrasures as the others obeyed the orders shouted by Lejaune.
Among the dead were both Sergeant Dupré and Corporal Boldini, and both had been stuck up to simulate living men. Haff must be dead too, for Delarey had been sent up to the platform, and was lying flat behind a little pile of bodies.
St. André was alive, for Lejaune called out:
"St. André, take rank as Corporal. One half the men to go below for soupe and coffee. Double back quick if you hear the 'Assembly' blown . . ." and St. André passed round the roof, touching each alternate man of those who were standing up, and saying, "Fall out, and go below."
In many embrasures was a man whom he did not touch.
Poor Cordier had spoken truly as concerned his own fate, for he remained at his post, staring out with dead eyes across the desert.
Maris was dead too. There were left three men--St. André, Michael, and myself, upon whom Lejaune could rely if the Arabs now drew off and abandoned the siege of the fort.
But this, the Arabs did not do.
Leaving a circle of what were presumably their best marksmen, to pick off any of the defenders of the fort who showed themselves, the bulk of them retired out of sight behind the oasis and sand-hills beyond it.
By Lejaune's orders, the embrasures were occupied only by the dead, the living being ordered below in small parties, for rest and food.
St. André was told to see that every man left his bed and paquetage as tidy as for inspection, and that the room was in perfect order. Lejaune himself never left the roof, but had soupe, coffee, and wine brought up to him.
To the look-out platform he sent Vogué to join the bodies of his fellow-conspirators, Schwartz, Haff, and Delarey.
Except for a crouching sentry in the middle of each wall of the roof, those who were not below, feeding and resting, sat with their backs to the wall, each beside his embrasure.
The fire of the Arab sharpshooters did no harm, and they wasted their ammunition on dead men.
And so the evening came and wore away and the moon rose.
Where we were, we lay, with permission to sleep, St. André having the duty of seeing that two sentries patrolled each wall and were changed every two hours.
By Lejaune's orders, Vogué, in the dusk before moonrise, pushed the bodies of Schwartz, Haff, and Delarey from the look-out platform to fall down to the roof. They were then posed in embrasures, as though living defenders of the fort. It seemed to give Lejaune special pleasure to thrust his half-smoked cigarette between Schwartz's teeth, and pull the dead man's képi rakishly to one side.
"There, my fine conspirator," said he when the body was arranged to his liking. "Stand there and do your duty satisfactorily for the first time in your life, now you're dead. Much more useful now than ever you were before."
"He's a devil! He's a devil! He's mad--mad! . . ." groaned Vogué as he dragged the body of Delarey past me.
"Up with him! Put him over there," growled Lejaune, when Vogué had got the body in his arms. "I'll allot your corpse the place next to his, and your pipe shall be stuck between your teeth. You are fond of a pipe, friend Vogué! Helps you to think out plots, eh? . . . Up with him, you dog . . ." and he kept his hand on the butt of his revolver as he baited the man. He then sent him back to the look-out platform, to be a target for the Touaregs when the moon rose, or the sun, if he lived to see it. . . .
I had a talk with Michael when our turn came to go below for a rest and food.
"Looks like a thin time to-morrow," said Michael. "If they pot a few of us and then rush, they should get in."
"Yes," I agreed. "They ought to keep up a heavy fire while their ammunition lasts, and then charge on camels in one fell swoop. And then climb up from the backs of the camels. A lot would be killed but a bigger lot would get in."
"Don't give them the tip, anyhow," grinned Michael. "Two or three hundred of the devils inside the place, and it would be a short life and a merry for the half-dozen or so of us who were left by that time. . . ."
"If we can stand them off to-morrow, the relief from Tokotu ought to roll up the next morning," I said.
"If either of those goums got away and played the game," agreed Michael. "They may have been pinched though. . . . The relief will find a thin house here, if they do come. . . . It'll mean a commission for Lejaune all right."
"Nice if he's
