The barque was uncomfortably near to the shore, and there was not a breath of wind, though the sails hung there ready to catch it when it came.
Coffee and biscuits, with cold meat, were served out to all hands about nine o’clock; then came the long dreary spell of waiting—waiting for a horror to come—waiting for something awful to happen—the very uncertainty as to the shape that something might assume making the waiting all the worse to bear.
High above them on a hill-top, about eleven o’clock, they noticed a fire suddenly spring up. It cast a ruddy glare across the waters, a blood-red path in the pitchy darkness, that was terrible to behold.
In a short time fire after fire shone out on the hill-tops all along the coast.
“You see those fires,” cried the captain to his men. “They are to summon the black and infernal clans. We’ll have them here in hundreds in another hour.”
“We’re ready,” cried a bold voice from among the men. “Never fear, sir. We’ll show them Glenorchy.”
“Hurrah!” cried the others.
The mate now approached the captain, evidently with a proposal.
“Yes, why shouldn’t we?” replied D’Acre; “everything is fair in love and war, especially against such demons as these. Do so, by all means.”
The proposal was to get up steam in the engine used on board for making soft water from salt, and if the worst came to the worst, and the savages obtained a footing on board, to turn the boiling hose upon them. It seemed very dreadful, but life is sweet.