"Very long," answered the lieutenant; "for there is no doubt that it is a preconcerted thing. An attack was made on that outlying post, a considerable distance from the fort, and probably only with the intention of getting our garrison to march away, while all the assembled tribes came down upon us, feeling, no doubt, that with the benefit of a surprise, and knowing how small our garrison must be, it would be carried at the first rush. Now that that has failed they will, no doubt, adopt some quite different tactics. I have had the men at work ever since daybreak, piling up sacks full of earth against the gate to within two or three feet of the top, where I have made some loopholes, so that our men can lie down on the sacks and keep up a heavy fire. That is all that I can do at present, until we see what game they mean to play."
"That is capital," the girl said; "if they make a real attack, that is the position where I shall place myself. There will be no chance of my being hit there, and at that distance I could calculate on bringing down an enemy at every shot."
"I am afraid that you are a very wilful young person," he said with a smile; "but as I know how good a shot you are, I shall not refuse your aid in case of extremity."
Towards daylight next morning a tremendous fire opened suddenly, and Nita dressed hastily and ran out. Running up to the walls, she saw that a large number of men were approaching the gate, covered by a rain of bullets from the mosque and village, and that, as it seemed to her, an equally strong attack was being made from the other side. The Punjaubis were hard at work, and from the number of dead that covered the ground behind the enemy, she felt how accurate their fire had been. This time the Afridis seemed to have worked themselves up to a pitch of fanatical bravery. Two or three times they halted for a minute, but their leaders came to the front, and, waving their flags, led them forward again. At last, in spite of the fire of the twenty-five men on that side, they reached the gate, at which they began to hack with their heavy knives.
Half a dozen men now ran down from the wall, and, climbing up the barricade, opened fire through the loopholes on the mass below, causing terrible destruction among them. The men who could not get at the gate opened fire at these loopholes, and it was not long before two of the defenders fell, shot through the head. Nita at once went up and took the place of one of them. The two men who had been killed were lying next to each other. Taking a careful aim from one loophole she fired--a man dropped; then she shifted her place to the next vacant loophole, and fired from that. Sometimes she lay still for two or three minutes, and then fired several shots in rapid succession from the loopholes; sometimes using one and sometimes the other, and thus avoiding the storm of bullets that followed each shot. She had no sense of fear now. She was proud of doing her share of the work. That she was doing a share she knew, for scarcely one of her shots missed the mark.