said
Harry.

Behind the carrying parties was a dense crowd of Malays, who rushed
forward as soon as the fireballs fell, hurling their spears and
shooting their arrows, to which the defenders replied vigorously.

"The stockade will not stand a moment against those trees," he
continued. "'Tis best to call the men in, at once."

The rajah ordered the native beside him to sound his horn and, in
two or three minutes, the men poured in at the entrance. As soon as
the last had come in, the bamboos were put in the holes prepared
for them, with some rattans twined between them. Scores of men then
set to work, bringing up the earth and stones that had been piled
close at hand.

In the meantime, the three hundred men on the walls kept up a
shower of arrows on the enemy. The battering rams, which consisted
of trees stripped of their branches, and some forty feet long and
ten inches thick, did their work and, by the time the entrance was
secure, the Malays poured in with exultant shouts.

A large supply of the fireballs had been placed on the platforms
and, as these were lighted and thrown down, the assailants were
exposed to a deadly shower of arrows as they rushed forward. At
this moment the rajah's servant brought up four double-barrelled
guns.

"They are loaded," the chief said, as he handed one of these to
Harry.

"How long is it since they were fired?" the latter asked.

"It is three months since I last went out shooting," the rajah
replied.

Harry at once proceeded to draw the charges.

"I should advise you to do the same, Rajah. A gun that has not been
fired for three months is not likely to carry straight, and is more
dangerous to its owner than to an enemy."

The rajah called up two of his men, and one of these at once drew
the charges of the guns, and reloaded them from the powder horn and
bag of bullets the servants had brought.

The enemy did not press their attack, but retired behind the
palisades and, from this shelter, began to shoot their arrows fast,
while a few matchlock men also replied.

"It would be as well, Rajah, to order all your men to sit down.
There is no use in their exposing themselves to the arrows, and
they are only wasting their own. We must wait, now, to see what
their next move will be. Fire will be of no use to them, now; and
the wall will take some battering before it gives way and, brave as
the men may be, they could not work the battering rams under the
shower of spears and