"They get a chance at us, more like!" he grumbled. "My opinion, the
blighters have shot and burnt themselves into a state o' mind; bloomin'
delusion o' grandeur, that's what. Wildest of 'em will rush us to-night,
once--maybe twice. We stave 'em off, say: that case, they'll settle down
to starve us, right and proper."
"Siege," assented Heywood.
"Siege, like you read about." The captain lay flat again. "Wish a man
could smoke up here."
Heywood laughed, and turned his head:--
"How much do you know about sieges, old chap?"
"Nothing," Rudolph confessed.
"Nor I, worse luck. Outside of school--_testudine facia,_ that sort of
thing. However," he went on cheerfully, "we shall before long"--He broke
off with a start. "Rudie! By Jove, I forgot! Did you find them? Where's
Bertha Forrester?"
"Gone," said Rudolph, and struggling to explain, found his late
adventure shrunk into the compass of a few words, far too small and bare
to suggest the magnitude of his decision. "They went," he began, "in
a boat--"
He was saved the trouble; for suddenly Captain Kneebone cried in a voice
of keen satisfaction, "Here they come! I told ye!"--and fired his rifle.
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