"Pung-dongs!" bawled the captain. "Look out for the pung-dong!"
His friends were too busy firing into the crowded gloom below. Rudolph, fumbling at side-bolt and pulling trigger, felt the end of a ladder bump his forehead, saw turban and mediaeval halberd heave above him, and without time to think of firing, dashed the muzzle of his gun at the climber's face. The shock was solid, the halberd rang on the platform, but the man vanished like a shade.
"Very neat," growled Heywood, who in the same instant, with a great shove, managed to fling down the ladder. "Perfectly silly attack. We'll hold 'em."
While he spoke, however, something hurtled over their heads and thumped the platform. The queer log, or cylinder, lay there with a red coal sputtering at one end, a burning fuse. Heywood snatched at it and missed. Some one else caught up the long bulk, and springing to his feet, swung it aloft. Firelight showed the bristling moustache of Kempner, his long, thin arms poising a great bamboo case bound with rings of leather or metal. He threw it out with his utmost force, staggered as though to follow it; then, leaping back, straightened his tall body with a jerk, flung out one arm in a gesture of surprise, no sooner rigid than drooping; and even while he seemed inflated for another of his speeches, turned half-round and dove into the garden and the night. By the ending of it, he had redeemed a somewhat rancid life.
Before, the angle was alive with swarming heads. As he fell, it was empty, and the assault finished; for below, the bamboo tube burst with a sound that shook the wall; liquid flame, the Greek fire of stink-pot chemicals, squirted in jets that revealed a crowd torn asunder, saffron faces contorted in shouting, and men who leapt away with clothes afire and powder-horns bursting at their sides. Dim figures scampered off, up the rising ground.
"That's over," panted Heywood. "Thundering good lesson,--Here, count noses. Rudie? Right-oh. Sturgeon, Teppich, Padre, Captain? Good! but look sharp, while I go inspect." He whispered to Rudolph. "Come down, won't you, and help me with--you know."
At the foot of the ladder, they met a man in white, with a white face in what might be the dawn, or the pallor of the late-risen moon.