Natalie took to her hiding place trembling, but not with fear. She had seen and heard that which chilled her blood and filled her head with redoubled doubts. But she had no time for considering those doubts; Rolfe darted back to his men, divided them into two parties, and, carefully assuring himself that the entire band of captors lay before him, he sent Blunt around to an opposite point on the glade and awaited the prearranged whistle.
Soon it came—a cleverly imitated boatswain's pipe for All Hands!—and suddenly the moaning ceased, the guards sat up in swift alarm.
"Give 'em hell, bullies!" roared Rolfe, and in a flash the glade crashed to the discharge of a dozen rifles. The first shots went astray, because the boatswain's pipe brought the captors to their feet after the first surprise; but a second discharge took heavy toll, and the three white officers rallied back to back, shouting frenziedly to their men to stand.
"Ay, they'll stand—stiff!" growled Bill Blunt, swinging his rifle end-for-end and jamming the butt into the face of a panic-stricken native seaman. A bullet from Rolfe passed through the head of the leader, and out of a whizzing shower of lead from the Barang's men another white went down. Then the native guards broke and ran, flinging guns away in their panic. The remaining officer, glaring around with savage hate in his eyes, turned to run too, but before leaving the spot he sprang over to Barry and placed his pistol to the prostrate skipper's head.
Then from the forest rang another shot, echoed by a sobbing cry, and the fellow pitched headlong across Barry, dead, his pistol exploding harmlessly, his throat pouring out his life. And Bill Blunt, following up that shot, came upon Natalie Sheldon, fainting on the edge of the glade, a warm pistol gripped tightly in her rigid hand.
Rolfe and his men had gone immediately to the aid of the tortured captives, and the two guides were despatched hotfoot after water. Then, with willing hands busily washing pained bodies free from sticky sugar and fiercely fighting ants, some distance removed from the spot where other hands were setting fire to the grass to beat back the scurrying hordes, Jack Barry and Little began to draw breath free from pangs and scrutinized each other in silent appraisal of damages. Neither had given sign of the agony sustained, save an occasional inevitable moan; yet neither had escaped without grievous injury that was painful if not more serious. But Little's bubbling spirits had not been utterly quenched, only damped; and now he grinned at the skipper with a brave effort at humor.
"Ain't very big, but ain't their darned feet hot!" he said, shrugging his shoulders suggestively.
"Huh!" grunted Barry, swabbing away at his throat, which still bled. "Only thing that bothers me is that a white man can't very well reciprocate the same way. I'd lose an eye to change dispositions with Leyden for just one hour and have him in my hands!"
"Cheer up, old hoss," grinned Little. "Go to it, if the chance turns up, and maybe the missionaries will convert you back to whitemanship again."
Their thoughts were turned into a pleasanter channel by the arrival of Miss Sheldon, recovered from her faintness and eager to be of service to them. She knelt between them, Rolfe's medicine kit in her hands, and began to cleanse and bandage their more painful hurts. The seamen, cut down from their trees, were in the hands of their shipmates.