"Lascars!" yelled Li Fu. "Plenty joss along Lim Tock!"
The Malays were rowing these boats; seamen unsurpassed. Well, this was the end of it; useless everything that had been done, once these boats came through. Barnes caught the arm of the yellow man.
"Empty one gun—then reload and wait. Savvy?"
Li Fu nodded hastily. The two whale-boats came on abreast, rowed with precision, a brown Malay at each steering crutch, the long oars rising and dipping and hurling her forward with absolute surety. Up they rose and up, then forward and down, as though leaping from that high curling wall into the water beyond!
Barnes found himself firing mechanically, firing until the hammer clicked on nothing and he slipped one of his extra clips into the weapon. Useless! A sudden inarticulate cry escaped his lips. The last bullet had brought down the steersman of the boat to the left. Almost through, she broached and swerved. The water swung her about, caught up her keel and spilled her men into the smother. She was sent rolling along, crushing the men beneath her, pounding on the sand until the undertow dragged her out and away.
But the other boat was through. It drove forward toward the islet with a wild yell lifting from the men aboard, and rifles spattering lead. And now the smaller boat was in the surf, and riding it.
"Back!" shouted Barnes. "Back to cover, Li! Fire and reload while I fire."
From the shelter of the brush, Li Fu emptied his two revolvers into the boat. He could hardly miss at this distance, as she came foaming to the shore. Barnes could see the figure of Lim Tock crouching amidships, a bandage about his head. Men went down, brown and yellow men crowded between her thwarts. Rifles and revolvers sent bullets hailing at the trees, and with the impetus that was upon her, she came in and her nose touched the beach.
Barnes was ready, cool, imperturbable. The first man that leaped from her, he dropped; and the second, and the third. Then the boat tipped, and brown and yellow came ashore in a mass, Lim Tock heading them. Krisses and knives flamed in the sunlight. The smaller boat was reaching into the shore now. The end was at hand.
Into the mass Barnes planted his bullets steadily. One gun was empty, now the other. No time to reload—he dropped them and seized that of Ellen Maggs. Only three or four men left, Lim Tock heading them! Then a new burst of yells, and from the last boat poured a dozen fresh assailants, with the serang Gajah at their head, his unhealed scalp wound red and ominous in the sunlight.