ried to unfix it. He could not manage that, and a tug of war
commenced, in which Gubbins, being the weaker and less active, was
pulled bodily out of the ranks, and would have been made mincemeat of
had not some one shot the Arab through the head, while his rear rank man
pulled him back. He owned afterwards that he was fairly scared.

"Thought that 'ere cannibal couldn't die!" he said, "Fust I shot him,
and then I bayoneted him, and he only snarled like a wild cat. Fancy a
chap pulling like that with one hole in his stomach and another in his
shoulder! 'Taint reasonable."

They fought like that, many of them.

When the momentary confusion was over, and the square again compact,
Strachan found an opportunity of slipping fresh cartridges into his
revolver; the work in prospect did not look like being suited to an
empty pistol. He had hardly done it before they were under the parapet
of the earthwork.

Here there was a pause; the Arabs, not dashing out, the British, after
their late experience, apparently not quite knowing whether they ought
to break the square formation by dashing in. Not to mention that the
Arabs were ticklish gentlemen to tumble over a bank into the middle of!

During this pause a stalwart, almost gigantic figure was seen walking up
the slope with a double-barrelled fowling-piece in his hand. Coming to
the parapet he brought the gun to his shoulder, fired right and left,
and calmly opening the breech, replaced the two empty cartridges with
two fresh ones, just as if he were standing during a battue, shooting
pheasants and not Soudanese.

"Look at Burnaby!" cried some one, and hundreds were looking at him,
expecting that at last he must fall, this dauntless traveller, keen
observer, and born soldier, who courted peril as other men court safety;
who spurned luxury and loved hardship; who seemed to treat the king of
terrors as a playfellow.

Again he gave the enemy in the earthwork, and within a few yards of him,
both barrels, and retreated a few steps down to re-load.

The Soudanese followed to the top of the parapet, but the moment one of
them showed his head above it he was shot by the soldiers close below.

Directly he had got fresh cartridges in, Colonel Burnaby stepped back to
his old place, and added another brace to his bag. But this combat
between one man and a host would never take the fort, and the foremost
line did not stand long at gaze, but ran up and clambered over the
artif