“Do you think so?” asked McCabe, hurriedly.
“Don’t think nothin’ ’bout it—I know it.”
“Good! Then the crisis will come immediately. Ugh! won’t it be a terrible slaughter? The whites little dream that death is so near to them, and momentarily drawing nearer.”
“An’ the Injuns little dream what is in store for them,” thought the hunter, but the thought was not expressed. He added aloud: “Yas, thar’s goin’ to be hullsale destruction in less’n a minute, an’ the victims have no idea what’s goin’ to happen.”
“Be the saints! I’m wishin’ there wasn’t goin’ to be any bloodshed, at all,” said the Irish boy, clasping his hands.
“Robbins,” whispered McCabe, close to the ranger’s ear, and his voice was husky and unsteady, “Robbins, they have surely had time to reach the island, if it was them you heard. Why don’t they begin the slaughter? Do you think—Good Lord!”
While he was speaking he had been looking out toward the island, straining eyes and ears to catch some sight or sound. The cause of the exclamation with which he interrupted himself, was a bright sheet of fire that suddenly flashed out through the darkness, followed quickly by the simultaneous reports of several rifles! Then there rose shriek upon shriek of mortal agony—groans deep and fearful—wild, piercing death-yells—mingled with the appalling war-cry of the assailants; all sounding hideous in the extreme, in the silent hours of the night! But, amid these noises, not a single white man’s voice could be heard.
“What does it mean?” gasped McCabe, clutching the hunter’s shoulder. “Surely, surely, they are not being defeated by the whites, and yet it sounds more like a defeat than a victory!”
“Keep cool,” admonished the backwoodsman, shaking off the grasp of the excited man; “jest keep cool, an’ I’ll tell yer what I thinks. The Injuns are gittin’ licked, sure’s shootin’, though it’s the qu’arest thing I ever heern tell on. That first volley was from the guns o’ the pale-faces, an’ it’s plain to me ’ut the reds are gittin’ the wust o’ thar little game. It’s sing’lar, I allow, but the whites have been put on thar guard somehow or other, ’cause—”
The sentence was destined to remain unfinished, for at that moment another fiery jet flamed up in the impending gloom, followed by another crash of fire-arms, as a second volley was poured into the assailants from those on the island. It must have been as destructive as the first, for there were more shrieks, and groans, and yells, and this time there was a plunging and floundering in the water, as if one or more canoes had been overturned.