“Come on, you black rascals!” shouted Blake, staggering as he stood.
“Follow me, sons of darkness!” yelled the sergeant.
The men obeyed with howls. Caught between two forces, the enemy, fighting like wolves, were driven down alleys, cut down in corners, scattered and broken. In five minutes Blake’s men and their unknown allies were staring and panting under the gate, their work done.
“Now,” suggested the Haussa, patting Blake all over with his delicate black hands in a search for fatal injuries--“now I go and picket that street whence came the good cooking smell.”
“Wait!” commanded Blake. He looked at the gate, at the dead lying in the light and the black shadow. Even now the gold had scarcely gone from the faint, hot blue of the sky; scattered bands of birds still flew across it, and the high air seemed stirred with a multitude of wings. He looked at the leader of the allies, who was standing on one leg and grinning anxiously.
The man drew his dusty heels together and carefully saluted.
“Yea, master. I was a policeman of the force wherewith he policed this town. He said to us, ‘Go here,’ or ‘Go there,’ and we went and punished the evil-doers. Twice and thrice have I fought under Mannering Bimbashi.” He gazed contemptuously at his command. “These others are also of his force, or of his house--warriors, as I am, or gardeners and herders of goats; but all Mannering Bimbashi’s men.”
“Mannering Bimbashi was slain, and many of his folk; but I was left. I remembered. I gathered these others together, and bade them remember also. Mannering Bimbashi was dead, but we were not freed from our service. We had to live. I was a seller of rock-salt in the market-place, and these others did work after their kind. Sometimes we met and spoke together. None knew us for his men, and his name might not be upon our lips; but we laid our hands upon our mouths--so--and then we remembered.”
“There is no more. It is very difficult to remember. But I knew the English would come in the footsteps of our bimbashi, and I held these of his together in readiness, as thou hast seen. But our bimbashi--on whom be peace!--has been dead a long time, and now we would take service with thee, O master.”
“Thou hast done well.” Blake’s voice shook a little as he thought how well. “Thou hast done very well. But why?”