. A splinter of stone, chipped by one of
their bullets, had struck him, but the wound was a trivial one. With
the discovery, however, came another, and one which was by no means
trivial. The bullet had been fired at a different angle from those
hitherto. The ground on the left front rose slightly. His enemies were
getting round him on that side. Soon he would be exposed to a complete
flanking fire.

The worst of it was that in that direction he could see nobody. The
cover was too good. He wondered they had not occupied this before,
unless it were that they deemed it of the highest importance to cut off
all chance of his escape by the river. Yet what chance had he there? A
mere choice of deaths, for it was rolling down in flood, and between
this and their fire from the bank, why, there was none at all.

And now the sun, which had been shining warm and glowing above this
scene of stern and deadly strife, upon the beleaguered man, desperate,
fighting to the last, beset by a swarm of persistent and ruthless foes--
suddenly grew dark. A shadow had curtained its face, black and
lowering. Blachland sent a hasty glance upward. One of those storms,
almost of daily occurrence now in the rainy season, would shortly break
over them. Would it bring him any advantage, however trifling--was his
eager thought? At any rate it could not alter his position for the
worse. And the hoarse and sullen boom of thunder mingled with the
vengeful spit of the rifles of his enemies, now more frequent and more
deadly because taking him from a new and almost unprotected quarter.

Ha! What was this? Under cover of this last diversion his enemies had
been stealing up. They were coming on in dozens, in scores, from the
first point of attack. Selecting two of the foremost, one behind the
other, he fired--and his aim was true, but at the same time his rifle
fell from his grasp, and his arm and shoulder felt as though crushed
beneath a waggon wheel. With fiendish yells, drowning the gasping cry
of the stricken warriors, the whole body of them poured forward. At the
same time, those on the rise behind, left their cover, and charged down
upon him, rending the air with their ear-splitting whistles.

He saw what had happened. The rifle had been struck by a bullet, and
the concussion had for the moment paralysed him. Only for the moment
though. Quick as the vivid flash which flamed down upon him from the
now darkened heavens, his mind