War to the Knife by Rolf Boldrewood

The hour before dawn, when "deep sleep falls upon men," found the whole household wrapped in that slumber which was the natural outcome of an anxious and exciting day. But the quick loud bark of an angry dog, subsiding into a sustained suspicious growl, and joined to a woman's scream from the camp of their native adherents, told Cyril Summers that the enemy was at hand. A confused murmur of voices, the trampling of feet, with the ordinary indefinable accompaniments of a body of men, aroused the sleepers with startling suddenness.

Mrs. Summers and Hypatia, like women on a sinking ship, displayed unwonted courage. Dressing themselves and the wondering children in haste, they joined Mr. Summers in the living-room of the cottage at the same moment that it was filled by an excited crowd of the wildest natives which any of the party had ever seen.