"We've been and gone and done it now," commented Major Fane.
"How's that?" queried Dacres, as he held out his left wrist for his chum to apply a bandage to a deep but clean gash caused by the partly-parried thrust of a spear.
"We've fired all the petrol except the two tins we held in reserve. We have none available to repeat the dose."
"I fancy they've had quite enough, eh, what?" rejoined Dacres. "Thanks, old man, it feels absolutely all right. A trifle on the tight side, perhaps, but for an amateur, Billy, you know how to doctor a fellow. Hallo, Osborne; how goes it? My word, that petrol flare shook 'em up a bit; but we needn't have used the lot. I was just saying----"
"It is indeed unfortunate," interposed Captain M'Bride. "We certainly ought not to have used the whole quantity. I had no idea that it would make such a furnace. Nearly lifted my eyebrows off, by Jove!"
"It's my opinion that the Arabs won't come up for a second dose," remarked Dacres.
"If they do they'll exercise more caution," said the skipper. "We must be prepared for a night attack. I've told off a party to pick up the rifles, ammunition, and spears of the Senussi left on the field. Mr. Osborne, will you see that the zariba is repaired?"
The Lieutenant saluted, and hurried away to carry out the Captain's order. Already twenty additional Mauser rifles had been brought in, and about four hundred rounds of ammunition. These were served out to the seamen, the recipients being specially cautioned to keep the captured ammunition apart from the British Service cartridges, so that no confusion would arise in the event of a possible attack during the hours of darkness.
Osborne had not allowed the lessons of the grim conflict to pass without gaining useful hints. At his suggestion the zariba was increased in thickness, the height remaining the same, while the ground for a width of twenty yards in front was liberally "salted" with sharp-pointed thorns that were buried "business end uppermost" in the sand, leaving a couple of inches projecting as a trap for unwary and unshod feet.
Since there was not another _fougasse_ to fire, the Lieutenant loaded the Very's pistol and lashed it to the stump of a bush about a hundred yards from the trenches. To the trigger he tied a thin piece of cord, obtained by unreeving the strands of a length of rope, and secured the other end to a picket driven deeply into the sand. In the event of any of the Senussi creeping up to the defences at night, contact with the cord would instantly give the alarm.