WE ATTACK
In the darkness and rain we soon lost sight even of those nearest us on each side, but we knew by the occasional almost imperceptible whisper of a paddle in the water, or by the faintest murmur of speech, that the others were keeping pace with us.
To this day I do not understand how the paddlers maintained the proper intervals in our line of attack; yet maintain them they did, by some means or other, according to a preconcerted plan, for we advanced without hurry or hesitation.
Approaching the ship more closely, we made out the rigging, which the soft yellow light of the lantern dimly revealed. We saw, too, a single dark figure leaning on the taffrail, which became clear as we drew nearer. I was surprised to perceive that we had come up astern of the ship—quite without reason I had expected to find her lying bow on. Now we rode the gentle swell without sound or motion. The slow paddles held us in the same place with regard to the ship, and minutes passed in which my nervousness rose to such a pitch that I felt as if I must scream or clap my hands simply to shatter that oppressive, tantalizing, almost unendurable silence. But when I started to turn and whisper to the cook, something sharp and cold pricked through the back of my shirt and touched my skin, and from that time on I sat as still as a wooden figurehead.
After a short interval I made out other craft drawing in on our right and left, and I later learned that, while we waited, the canoes were forming about the ship a circle of hostile spears. But it then seemed at every moment as if the man who was leaning on the taffrail must espy us,—it always is hard for the person in the dark, who sees what is near the light, to realize that he himself remains invisible,—and a thousand fears swept over me.
There came now from somewhere on our right a whisper no louder than a mouse's hiss of warning or of threat. I scarcely was aware of it. It might have been a ripple under the prow of the canoe, a slightest turn of a paddle. Yet it conveyed a message that the natives instantly understood. The man just behind me repeated it so softly that his repetition was scarcely audible, even to me who sat so near that I could feel his breath, and at once the canoe seemed silently to stir with life. Inch by inch we floated forward, until I could see clearly the hat and coat-collar of the man who was leaning against the rail. It was Kipping.
From forward came the cautious voices of the watch. The light revealed the masts and rigging of the ship for forty or fifty feet from the deck, but beyond the cross-jack yard all was hazy, and the cabin seemed in the odd shadows twice its real size. I wondered if Falk were asleep, too, or if we should come on him sitting up in the cabin, busy with his books and charts. I wondered who was in the galley, where I saw a light; who was standing watch; who was asleep below. Still we moved noiselessly on under the stern of the ship, until I almost could have put my hands on the carved letters, "Island Princess."
Besides things on deck, the light also revealed our own attacking party. The man in front of me had laid his paddle in the bottom of the canoe and held a spear across his knees. In the boat on our right were five natives armed with spears and krises; in the one on our left, four. Beyond the craft nearest to us I could see others less distinctly—silent shadows on the water, each with her head toward our prey, like a school of giant fish. In the lee of the ship, the pinnace floated at the end of its painter.
Still the watch forward talked on in low, monotonous voices; still Kipping leaned on the rail, his head bent, his arms folded, to all appearances fast asleep.
I had now forgotten my fears. I was keenly impatient for the word to attack.