Worsted for a time, the Arabs withdrew, after making several attempts to carry the barracoon by storm.
But that they would return ere long right well those Breezies knew.
Although the Arabs had fired volley after volley, yet, strange to say, they had not in this attack a single man wounded, so well did they keep to the bush and so steady was their fire.
All the Arabs that fell into the hands of the blacks were slain; indeed, they were almost rent limb from limb, and it was with the greatest difficulty Captain _Breezy_ succeeded at last in preventing the freed men from expending their fury on the mutilated corpses, which they even bit and tore with their teeth, till, dancing there in the moonlight, they looked more like devils incarnate than human beings.
There was but little chance that the enemy would attack again at the same place, so a little black slave was sent up the tree, instructed to signal whenever the foe was approaching, and point out his position.
They found they had still about seventy rounds of ammunition left per man, but, as this would not stand a long siege, orders were given not to throw way a single shot.
The next attack was made about half an hour before sunrise, and a sudden determined and terrible one it was.
The first the Breezies knew of its commencement was from a fusillade delivered from the bush. Although such splendid swordsmen, the Arabs are not good marksmen, and their rifles are usually bad. In this case it appeared they had determined to make sure. Not fewer than twenty rifles must have been aimed at the cocoa-nut palm, hidden in which was our little black sentry.
Next moment his body fell at their feet with a dull and awful splashing thud, the sound of which could never be forgotten.
The Arabs attacked about five minutes after, and from a side of the barracoon--so wily were they--that the white men fancied they would never attempt to scale.
Before they had fired two volleys they were over the palisade, not in scores but in hundreds apparently. One more rifle volley was filed, then the Breezies advanced at the double to meet the foe.
I cannot describe that terrible _mêlée_. The charge of those sword-armed Arabs seemed like "the shock of Hell" that Scott speaks of in Marmion.