"Presently I felt a crash and a shock, and fell backwards to the
ground. I was not hurt, and picking myself up saw that the ball had
struck the parapet to the left, just where my guard was sitting,
and he lay covered with its fragments. His turban lay some yards
behind him. Whether he was dead or not I neither knew nor cared.
"I pushed down some of the parapet where I had been sitting,
dropped my cap on the edge outside, so as to make it appear that
I had fallen over, and then, picking up the man's turban, ran to
the other end of the platform and scrambled down to the ledge. Then
I began to wave my arms about--I had nothing on above the waist
--and in a moment I saw a face with a uniform cap peer out through
the jungle; and a hand was waved. I made signs to him to make his
way to the foot of the perpendicular wall of rock beneath me. I then
unwound the turban, whose length was, I knew, amply sufficient to
reach to the bottom, and then looked round for something to write
on. I had my pencil still in my trousers pocket, but not a scrap
of paper.
"I picked up a flattish piece of rock and wrote on it, 'Get a rope
ladder quickly, I can haul it up. Ten men in garrison. They are
all under cover. Keep on firing to distract their attention.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174