The sailor forgot all about the wounded in the cabin, and running right forward, he seized a capstan bar for a weapon, and then went to the side waiting to help and repel the attack, if any of the enemy managed to reach the deck.
But evidently somewhat daunted by the firearms and the injuries inflicted upon several of their party, the savages did not come too near, but stood drawing their bows from time to time, and sending their arrows up in the air, so that they might fall nearly perpendicularly upon the deck. Many times over the men had hairbreadth escapes from arrows which fell with a sharp whistling sound, and stuck quivering in the boards, while the mate made the crew hold their fire.
“Firing at them is no good,” he said, “or they would have stopped away after the first volleys. Let them shoot instead and waste their arrows. They’ll soon get tired of that game. So long as they don’t hurt us, it’s of no consequence. All we want, is for them to leave us alone.”
“But it does not seem as if they would do that,” said Drew, to whom he was speaking.
“Well, then, if they will not, we must give them another lesson, and another if it comes to that. We’re all right now in our bit of a fort, but it seems queer to be in command of a ship that will not— Hah! Look at that!” he cried, stooping to pull from the deck an arrow which had just fallen with a whizz. “You may as well keep some of these and take ’em home for curiosities, sir. There’s no trickery or deceit about them. They were not made for trade purposes, but for fighting.”
“And are they poisoned?” said Drew anxiously.
“Best policy is to say no they are not, sir. We don’t want to frighten Mr Panton into the belief that he has been wounded by one, for if he does, he’ll get worse and worse and die of the fancy; whereas, after the spirits are kept up, even if the arrow points have been dipped into something nasty, he may fight the trouble down and get well again. I say, take it that they are not poisoned and let’s keep to that, for many a man has before now died from imagination. Why, bless me! if the men got to think that the savages’ weapons were poisonous, every fellow who got a scratch would take to his bunk, and we should have no end of trouble.”
“I suppose so,” said Drew. “But tell me, what do you think of my companions’ wounds?”
“Well, speaking as a man who has been at sea twenty years, and has helped to do a good deal of doctoring with sticking plaster and medicine chest—for men often get hurt and make themselves ill—I should say as they’ve both got nasty troublesome wounds which will pain them a bit for weeks to come, but that there’s nothing in them to fidget about. Young hearty out-door-living fellows like yourselves have good flesh, and if it’s wounded it soon heals up again.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”