The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn

by Harry Collingwood

The wind being fair, I made a quick run across to Cliff Island; and a swift-footed native boy soon brought Bowata down to the landing-place where we usually met. Explaining the circumstances to him, I found him, as I had quite anticipated, more than ready to render me every possible assistance; and, departing to muster his men, he returned in a very short time with nineteen of his most reliable fighters—the boat’s utmost capacity was twenty, in addition to myself, and the chief naturally elected to accompany and head his party. Those men, Bowata assured me, were the pick of the entire tribe, and I quite believed him, for, although small and slight compared with the average Englishman, they were lithe, wiry, active, and resolute-looking men, with an eager gleam in their eyes which seemed to suggest that the prospect of a fight was the reverse of distasteful to them. They were each armed with a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and a most formidable-looking war club, the head of which was thickly studded with bone spikes, and which promised to be terribly effective at close quarters—the latter being a quite recent addition to their armoury invented by Bowata’s son, whose imagination had at last been stimulated by the persistent attacks of the apes.

The return passage to Eden—half of which was a dead beat to windward, with the boat loaded to her utmost capacity—occupied so long a time that I was in a perfect fever of anxiety lest the junk should arrive before us; but upon rounding the south-east point of Cliff Island I was somewhat relieved to see that she had, so far, not entered the lagoon, nor did I see any sign of her during the remainder of the passage; for, low down in the water as we were, the spray of the surf breaking upon the reef effectually veiled from our view everything outside.

There was still no sign of the junk when at length the boat entered the little cove that was our usual landing-place, and grounded on the beach. Ten minutes later we surmounted the crest of the ridge, on the far side of which stood the bungalow, and I once more got a view of the open sea outside, over the curtain of everlasting spray that had obstructed my view from the boat. The junk was visible, clearly enough, hove-to at a distance of about a mile to windward of the reef; and I hurried to the house for the telescope, that I might obtain a nearer view of what was happening aboard her. Seizing the telescope I proceeded to the veranda, from which I brought the instrument to bear upon the craft.

I now saw that she had lowered a boat that, manned by a crew of five, was heading for the opening in the reef immediately opposite our island. This boat I watched, keeping the telescope bearing upon her as she alternately topped and disappeared behind the long ridges of swell, until at length she passed through the opening and entered the lagoon. Once through the reef, she headed straight for Eden, and it looked as though the men in her contemplated landing on the beach at the foot of the slope upon which the bungalow was built; whereupon I thought it well to hoist the brigantine’s ensign upon the flagstaff I had set up in front of the bungalow, as a hint to the intruders that the island was British territory, and that its inhabitants expected that territory to be respected.

The boat, approaching cautiously, at length reached a point about a quarter of a mile from the beach, when the crew lay upon their oars, while the man in the stern-sheets rose to his feet and proceeded to subject Eden, and as much of the rest of the group as was visible from his point of view, to a prolonged scrutiny, after which, at a sign from him, the oars again dipped in the water and, turning, the boat recrossed the lagoon and made her way back to the junk.

There was now a pause in the proceedings, during which, I conjectured, the man who had been in charge of the boat was making his report to his skipper. The pause, however, was not of long duration, for, as I continued to watch, signs of a sudden stir aboard the junk became perceptible, and a few minutes later I saw that her crew were lowering two more boats, much larger than the first, and that a considerable number of men—who, so far as it was possible to see at that distance, were all armed—were swarming down the junk’s side into them. This seemed to indicate that my worst suspicions regarding the character of the vessel were only too well founded, and that a pretty stiff fight was in prospect for us. If this should be so it was time to see about making my dispositions for the conflict; I accordingly re-entered the house and, girding on my cutlass, thrust a brace of fully loaded revolvers into my belt, seized my own pet rifle and, filling my jacket pockets with cartridges, sallied forth and, joining Bowata and his party, led them down to the beach.

This particular strip of beach, it should be explained, was quite unlike the other beaches of the group. The latter, composed of white coral sand, were continuous, smooth, unencumbered, averaged from thirty feet wide in some cases to as much as a hundred feet wide in others, and usually sloped steeply enough to enable our boat, with good way on her, to run herself high enough on them to permit us to land dry-footed. On the other hand, the beach toward which we were now heading was a strip of coral sand not more than a quarter of a mile long, perfectly smooth, but sloping so very gently that I much doubted whether the boats I had seen preparing to leave the junk could approach within fifty yards of the shore without grounding. But the circumstance most greatly in our favour was that this comparatively short length of beach, while inviting enough in appearance as a landing-place, was backed, on its shore side, by an outcrop of black rocks that offered splendid cover for a defending force while leaving attackers from the sea completely exposed. These peculiarities of the shore rendered it morally certain that the beach itself would be the actual battle-ground in the coming conflict; and it was with the view to its decision there that I made my final arrangements, and posted Bowata and his men. Having done this to my satisfaction I took my rifle and advanced to the open beach, where I seated myself upon a detached fragment of rock, and patiently awaited developments.

These proved to be somewhat slow in arriving; and the period of waiting was rendered all the more tedious from the fact that, low down on the beach as I now was, the continuous veil of spray flying over the reef effectually hid everything that might be happening to seaward; but at length, after waiting for fully an hour for something to happen, one of the Chinese boats appeared in the gap in the reef, closely followed by a second and a third. The two leading boats were largish craft, pulling eight oars each, and they appeared to be carrying some fourteen or sixteen men each, while the third was the much smaller craft that had already once entered the lagoon, the crew of which seemed now to be augmented by three or four extra men. Once clear of the passage, they formed in line abreast, the smaller boat between the two big ones, while one man, doubtless the leader of the expedition, stood in the stern-sheets, directing the movements of his little flotilla from time to time by a wave of his hand.

The distance across the lagoon at this point, from the reef to the beach of Eden, was about a mile; the boats were therefore not long in traversing the distance. But I did not intend to allow our unwelcome visitors to land without a protest of some sort, and at the same time giving them something in the nature of a warning. I therefore waited until the boats had arrived within about two hundred yards of the beach, when, rising to my feet, I discharged my rifle, aiming to send the shot a few yards above the head of the leader, who was still standing in the stern-sheets of the smaller boat.

As though my rifle-shot had been a signal, the oarsmen of all three of the boats instantly ceased rowing, and a tremendous jabbering arose among them, which the leader silenced by raising his hand, at the same time shouting what I took to be a sharp command. The oarsmen dipped their starboard oars, sweeping the three boats broadside-on to the beach, and the next moment I was saluted by a shower of bullets and slugs from some twenty jingals. For an instant the air all about me seemed to be full of lead, but I was untouched; and, knowing that it would take them a minute or two to reload, I wheeled about and, crossing some half-dozen yards of open ground, took cover behind a convenient rock.