Himself armed, Frobisher desperately strove to break through and get to the front, so that he might in some degree stem the rush until his men could recover their wits; but it could not be done. The Chinese were being driven backward and jammed together by sheer weight of numbers, until they could move neither hand nor foot, and were being slaughtered like sheep. The last thing that Frobisher was conscious of was that he was shouting frenziedly for Drake; then something flashed before his eyes, a thousand sparks danced through his brain, and he knew no more.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Japanese Troops to the Rescue.
The next thing of which Frobisher became aware was that he was in an extremely uncomfortable position, and that he was suffering a very considerable amount of pain. It also appeared to him that he was experiencing an altogether unpleasant degree of warmth; while he seemed to hear, ringing in his ears like the echo of something listened to ages ago, the sound of what very strongly resembled a steamer’s syren. Added to this, he was conscious that there were many people quite close to him, groaning in varying degrees of agony; and finally, as his faculties resumed their normal condition, he began to realise that he was in a very disagreeable predicament.
Refraining from opening his eyes, he waited patiently until the feeling of sickness and dizziness with which he was oppressed had slightly worn off, striving meanwhile to remember how it came about that he was wounded in the head, and firmly lashed, with his arms behind him, to the trunk of a tree, in unpleasant proximity to a large fire. Little by little his memory returned, and he remembered clearly everything that had taken place, up to the time when the enclosure had been rushed by the Formosan savages, and he himself had fallen unconscious from the blow of a spear haft across his head. What, he wondered, had become of poor Drake? He had not set eyes on him during the whole of that brief scuffle, and he began to fear the worst for his friend.
A remarkable sight revealed itself to his wondering gaze when he at length opened his eyes. Instead of being bound to the trunk of a tree, as he had previously supposed, he found that he was secured to a stout post driven into the ground, his arms, behind him, encircling the post, with the wrists lashed together by what felt like rough ropes of native fibre. Glancing downward, he saw that his ankles had been placed one on each side of the stake, and secured there by several lengths of rattan; and it was to this that his uncomfortable and cramped position was due, as his whole weight was thus thrust forward until it was supported almost entirely by the wrists.
Looking round him, he saw that a number of similar stakes had been erected in the form of a circle, in the centre of which was a roaring fire, the heat from which he had become unpleasantly aware of on his return to consciousness; and to each post was secured the body of a man, supported in the same manner as himself. Many of them appeared, Frobisher noticed, to be in a state of entire, or nearly entire, unconsciousness. These men were, of course, the Chinese seamen who had escaped death at the first onslaught of the savages, and had survived, he very greatly feared, only to meet a far more sinister fate than that of sudden death.
His gaze diligently searched the circle for Drake, and he was beginning to fear that his old friend must be numbered with the slain, when one of the figures raised its head slowly and painfully, as though just returning to consciousness, and revealed the blood-stained, haggard features of the first lieutenant. At the same time Drake turned his eyes in Frobisher’s direction, stared blankly at him for a second, and then smiled a glad but painful smile—painful because of the slash which he had received across the face; but he refrained from calling a greeting, and Frobisher instantly recognised that the other must have some good reason for remaining silent—a circumstance very much opposed to his usual nature.