Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/362

 a disturbing weakness descended upon him. So he leaned against his embrasure and chewed milk-tablets, and fired when he saw a moving shadow to target into, or a threatening gun-arm to aim at, and made the white-faced girl eat her portion of the milk-tablets and drink the last of the brandy-and-water.

And as he watched the afternoon grew older, and the sun swung lower over Guariqui. But still he fired and reloaded and wondered if the Princeton had steamed into Puerto Locombia, and silently and devoutly prayed for help.

Then all thought of prayer went from his mind, for his squinting eyes had fallen on what looked like a salt-barrel as it appeared over the brink of the creek-bank, a ludicrous and unlooked-for thing of staves and hoops.

McKinnon watched this barrel, in wonder, for it seemed to shift about by itself. Then it began to roll slowly forward. It advanced towards the rifle-pit, inch by inch, propelled by no visible human hand. It moved ponderously onward, foot by foot, as though it had been endowed with some miraculous power of locomotion.

Then it came to a stop, on a barren "hog-back," high above the ground that surrounded it. But even before the betraying black finger of a rife-end appeared cautiously and slowly above