At that fearful moment George learned the value of a friend that had seen adventure and crime; rapid and fierce and unexpected as the attack was, Robinson was not caught off his guard. His hand went like lightning into his bosom, and the assailants, in the very act of striking, were met in the face by the long glistening barrels of a rifle revolver, while the cool, wicked eye behind it showed them nothing was to be hoped in that quarter from flurry, or haste, or indecision.
The two men nearest the revolver started back, the other two neither recoiled nor advanced, but merely hung fire. George made a movement to throw himself upon them; but Robinson seized him fiercely by the arm—he said steadily but sternly, “Keep cool, young man—no running among their knives while they are four. Strike across me and I shall guard you till we have thinned.”
“Will you?” said Black Will, “here, pals!” The four assailants came together like a fan for a moment and took a whisper from their leader. They then spread out like a fan and began to encircle their antagonists, so as to attack on both sides at once.
“Back to the water, George,” cried Robinson quickly, “to the broad part here.” Robinson calculated that the stream would protect his rear, and that safe he was content to wait and profit by the slightest error of his numerous assailants; this, however, was to a certain degree a miscalculation, for the huge ruffian we have called Jem sprang boldly across the stream higher up and prepared to attack the men behind, the moment they should be engaged with his comrades. The others no sooner saw him in position than they rushed desperately upon George and Robinson in the form of a crescent, and as they came on Jem came flying knife in hand to plunge it into Robinson's back. As the front assailants neared them, true to his promise, Robinson fired across George, and the outside man received a bullet in his shoulder-blade, and turning round like a top fell upon his knees. Unluckily George wasted a blow at this man which sung idly over him, he dropping his head and losing his knife and his powers at the very moment. By this means Robinson, the moment he had fired his pistol, had no less than three assailants; one of these George struck behind the neck so furiously with a back-handed stroke of his iron-shod stick that he fell senseless at Robinson's feet. The other, met in front by the revolver, recoiled, but kept Robinson at bay while Jem sprang on him from the rear. This attack was the most dangerous of all; in fact, neither Robinson nor George had time to defend themselves against him even if they had seen him, which they did not. Now as Jem was in the very act of making his spring from the other side of the brook, a spear glanced like a streak of light past the principal combatants and pierced Jem through and through the fleshy part of the thigh, and there stood Jacky at forty yards' distance, with the hand still raised from which the spear had flown, and his emu-like eye glittering with the light of battle.
Jem, instead of bounding clear over the stream, fell heavily into the middle of it and lay writhing and floundering at George's mercy, who turning in alarm at the sound stood over him with his long deadly staff whirling and swinging round his head in the air, while Robinson placed one foot firmly on the stunned man's right arm and threatened the leader Black Will with his pistol, and at the same moment with a wild and piercing yell Jacky came down in leaps like a kangaroo, his tomahawk flourished over his head, his features entirely changed, and the thirst of blood written upon every inch of him. Black Will was preparing to run away and leave his wounded companions, but at sight of the fleet savage he stood still and roared out for mercy. “Quarter! quarter!” cried Black Will.
“Down on your knees!” cried Robinson in a terrible voice.
The man fell on his knees, and in that posture Jacky would certainly have knocked out his brains but that Robinson pointed the pistol at his head and forbade him; and Carlo, who had arrived hastily at the sound of battle, in great excitement but not with clear ideas, seeing Jacky, whom he always looked on as a wild animal, opposed in some way to Robinson, seized him directly by the leg from behind and held him howling in a vise. “Hold your cursed noise, all of you,” roared Robinson. “D'ye ask quarter?”
“Quarter!” cried Black Will.
“Quarter!” gurgled Jem.
“Quarter!” echoed more faintly the wounded man. The other was insensible.