Therefore, when our antagonists opened the ball by casting spears at us, I retaliated by seizing my gun and aiming at the water line of the nearest canoe, expecting the bullet to pass right through her, leaving two holes which would admit quite a quantity of water, unless the savages happened to possess the means to plug them. My shot went true, for as the smoke blew away I saw a small white puncture show in the bottom of the canoe for an instant before it was hidden by the roll of the craft. A loud yell of astonishment greeted my first essay, showing that these particular savages had never before had experience of firearms; but the yell was not wholly the result of astonishment either, for I saw a native clap his hand to his leg, and shrewdly guessed that the bullet had punctured him as well as the canoe. I had time to drop the discharged gun, seize the loaded one, and fire a second shot before we were fairly past that particular craft; but that second shot was less successful than the first, for it missed the canoe. However, it caught a native, who sprang convulsively to his feet, his hands clutching his head, as, wheeling half-round, he staggered backward and tumbled head over heels into the sea. I naturally expected that his friends would stop and endeavour to pick him up, but not a bit of it; they merely uttered another yell, apparently of encouragement to each other, and drove their paddles into the water with increased energy.
Both guns being now empty, I signed Simpson to come to the wind and luff athwart the sterns of the flotilla, while I busied myself upon the recharging of the pieces. By the time that this was done we were on the starboard quarter of the most southerly of the canoes, and I immediately proceeded to test my skill upon her. Making short tacks across her stern, I fired half a dozen bullets into her, every one of which hit, five out of the six wounding and disabling one or more of her occupants as well as drilling a hole in the canoe herself, with the result that she began to drop astern of the others, the crews of which were exerting themselves to their very utmost, having apparently come to the conclusion that the sooner they could reach the island the better it would be for them. Wherefore I attacked the next canoe in like manner: but now I was less careful than before in the matter of hurting her occupants, for it began to dawn upon me that these savages had no notion of standing by to help a disabled consort, and that, do what I would, I could not possibly prevent some of them at least from effecting a landing; therefore my business must be to see that as few of them as possible should set foot on the island. Incidentally, I found that by persistently attacking the southernmost canoe I was slowly but surely effecting one part of my purpose, by causing the whole flotilla to edge slowly away to the northward, thus diverting them from any purpose that they might have had of landing in South-west Bay.
Then another plan suggested itself to me. I saw that the savages were either destitute of means to plug the bullet holes in their canoes or had not wit enough to make use of them; but each canoe appeared to carry several large calabash bowls, which were used as balers: my plan, therefore, was to shoot promptly at any man whom I saw attempting to bale a leaky canoe, with the result that the particular canoe which I happened to be attacking gradually filled and ultimately swamped, leaving her crew to cling helplessly to her as she floated full to her gunwale, or to strike out for the island, now some three miles distant. And since the fellows swam like seals there was no doubt that they would ultimately reach it—unless a shark happened to encounter them on the way; but I did not allow the probability of their ultimate arrival on the island to worry me much, for I felt tolerably certain that, before that could happen, we should have made good our escape, if indeed we were going to escape at all.
Our effective antagonists were now reduced to eight canoes and their crews, who were all hanging together as much as possible for mutual protection, but were making poor headway against the steadily increasing wind and sea. If I could hinder them still further, so much the better; and the most obvious way to do that was to weaken their crews by wounding as many as possible: therefore I now resumed my original tactics of tacking to and fro athwart their sterns, and raking them as we passed. And this, I soon found, was a very excellent plan, for it not infrequently happened that by this mode of attack I was able to make one bullet do double, and in some cases even treble duty; the result being that by the time that we all drew up abreast of the island the entire fleet was in such difficulties that they were scarcely able to make any headway at all, two of the canoes indeed being so seriously crippled that at last, notwithstanding their close proximity to the island, they were actually compelled to bear up and run away to leeward again, while another of them was swamped, leaving five out of the original ten still to contend with.
And now my trouble began in earnest, for so desperate were the savages rendered by the merciless persecution to which they had compelled me, in self-defence, to subject them, that they made the most strenuous efforts to get into South-west Bay; and, indeed, it was not until I bore up and took the extreme risk of running down one canoe that I was finally able to turn them from their purpose. But ultimately, after a running fight—if so one-sided an affair could be so called—four of them contrived to weather North-west Cape and effect a landing in North Bay. Then, after chasing them right into the bay, and keeping up a brisk fire upon them until they landed, to the number of about one hundred and twenty, and vanished into the woods, we in the catamaran bore up, headed out to sea again, and made the best of our way back to South-west Bay and the shipyard, hoping that upon our arrival we should find the schooner afloat; for we had been gone fully four hours.
But to my intense disappointment, when we entered the bay there was the schooner still high and dry upon the stocks, with Chips, the boatswain, and Cunningham all busily engaged in turning over the small pile of lumber that still remained from the dismembered wreck of the Martha. Presently one of them looked up, saw us coming, and apparently reported the fact to the others, for Cunningham at once straightened himself up and came down to the water’s edge to meet us.
“Well, Temple,” he exclaimed, as the catamaran grounded and I stepped ashore, “how have things gone with you? Have you managed to beat off our friends the enemy?”
“I have not,” I answered, just a trifle sourly, I am afraid. “A hundred or more of them have landed round there in North Bay; and we may confidently expect a visit from them within the next half-hour. But what the mischief have you fellows been up to all this time? I fully expected to find the schooner afloat, under way, and only awaiting our return to be off! What have you been doing? Playing poker, or what?”
“Now, my dear chap, don’t you go and turn rusty as well as the rest of us, or there’s no knowing what may happen; for, let me tell you, we’re all just as savage as bears with sore heads,” remonstrated Cunningham. “No,” he continued, “we’ve not been playing poker, or hunt the slipper, or even kiss in the ring; to put it plainly, we’ve been trying to do the impossible. The long and the short of it is, Temple, that we have used up our last scrap of available timber, and there still remains a good half-hour’s work to be done on the cradle before we dare start to wedge up. We have been nailing and plugging bits together, and working them in to the best of our ability, until our last nail is expended; and now we seem to be at a standstill. I’ll be shot if I know how we’re going to get over the difficulty.”
“What! do you mean to tell me that after getting as far as that we are brought to a standstill for the sake of a few pieces of timber?” I demanded. “How much do you require?”