“All right,” said Carey, following the doctor’s example and returning the little charges to the ammunition bag. “I say, we shall only just get aboard before dark.”
“We ought to have been half-an-hour sooner,” observed the doctor, and five minutes or so later the raft rubbed with a grinding sound against the side, where it was made fast to a ring bolt by their hanging ladder.
The doctor ascended first to the darkened deck, for the night had fallen very rapidly during the last few minutes. Carey followed him, and leaned down before he reached the top of the ladder for the guns, which he took from Bostock’s hands and passed up to the doctor.
The satchels and bucket of treasures they had found followed, and then Carey finished his ascent to the lofty deck.
“Look sharp, Bob,” he said, “and let’s have some supper at once.”
“Supper it is, sir, in a brace of jiffies,” replied the old sailor, as he stepped on deck, and he was in the act of turning to his left to go below to the galley, when he stopped short and uttered a warning cry.
“The guns—the guns!” he yelled.
Too late. There was a rush of bare feet on the soft deck, and through the gloom Carey was just able to make out that they were surrounded by a party of blacks, each poising a spear ready to throw and holding in his other hand either a knobkerry or a boomerang.
“Go mumkull white fellow; baal, lie down, quiet, still!”
This was said in a fierce voice by one of the savage-looking fellows, and Carey mastered the desire to bound away and take refuge below.