"Yes, 'tis 'Master Brent, sir,' 'Please, sir, would you be so kind, sir!' now," says Billy with a sneer.
"If you please, sir," begins Hoggett again, almost echoing Billy's mockery, "the savages are right on our heels, sir, and we're Christians, and you wouldn't see us all slaughtered like pigs, sir."
"Why shouldn't I?" I cried through a loophole. "What reason can you give why we should interfere?"
Here Wabberley cried out in terror that the savages were coming, and we saw several dusky forms appear in the distance. Hoggett, who was not without a certain courage, and coolness too, turned to the men and bade them post themselves behind the pigsties and fowlhouse, and let the savages have one shot to daunt them, but not more, from which I guessed they were very short of powder and shot. Almost in the same breath he continued his pleading with me, and I own he sickened me when he declared he repented of the wrong he had done, and if I would only let him in, like a "kind Christian gentleman," he would fetch and carry for me all the rest of his days. I think I might have yielded if he had not been so abject, which I did not need Billy's mockery to tell me was mere feigning; but I resolutely refused, and then we saw Hoggett in his true colours again, for the savages beginning to close round, he gave a glance at them and then poured out upon me the most horrible vituperation and foulest language I ever heard from the lips of any man, and then ran to join his comrades who were ensconced behind our outbuildings.
A Fight with Savages
The savages came on in a pretty compact body, brandishing spears and clubs, many of them having bows and arrows, and all looking exceeding fierce, their skins being tattooed in strange and hideous patterns, their hair bushed up like a thatch supported on what seemed to be a row of shark's teeth. There was much shouting and gesticulating among them, and from the manner of their pointing I guessed that they were mighty surprised at the sight of our hut and its surroundings, and indeed they came to a halt at some little distance from the moat, and seemed to be deliberating what course to follow; and all the time the seamen, who had regained something of their courage now that they were behind cover, closely watched them, but never offered to fire. The clamour of the savages increased to a wondrous degree, and I believed they must be working up their courage to charge, and presently the group widened out until it was near a half-circle in shape, and then the naked warriors, near two hundred in number, rushed forward with most furious whoops, their leader being a man of great stature and especial intricacy of tattooing. They had come within about eighty yards of the seamen when I heard Hoggett give the word to fire, and there were instantly several shots, but not so many shots as muskets, by which I saw that there was shortness of ammunition, as I suspected. The half-dozen shots, however, were enough to bring the savages to a pause, not because of any damage done among them, for the muskets of those days were not near so good as the rifles which I hear some of our men carried of late in Spain; but because of the noise and smoke, which are as terrifying to savage people as they are to animals. When the seamen had fired they began instantly to put in fresh charges, and the savage chief stirred his people up to attack again; but I observed that some of them had already drawn back, in fear of the muskets. However, others, though they did not advance further, stood their ground and began to discharge arrows and spears, which at first did no hurt at all, because the seamen were pretty well hidden; which seeing, the savages spread out so as to encircle the outbuildings, and then began to discharge their weapons again, the white men no longer being all sheltered. What shrieks of joy there were when the savages observed that one or two of their missiles had got home! Taking new courage from the sight, they surged forward with blood-curdling yells, and had come within about fifty yards of the pig-sty when Hoggett again gave the word to fire, and this time they hit one or two of the savages, and again brought them to a halt.
"I don't think much of them for fighters," said Billy, who had been watching these proceedings very eagerly through his loophole. "Why don't they rush in while the rascals are priming their guns? They're just a lot of donkeys, that's what they are."
Asylum
But I saw that this second halt of the savages was only as a gathering up of strength, for they were now frenzied, as well with delight at the wounding of two of the white men as with anger at the damage done among themselves. Even before the seamen had had time to charge their guns again I saw the rush beginning, and I could not doubt that this time the savages would overwhelm the little company of white men, or at least do terrible execution among them. And in that moment my mind was made up for me, as it were without my consent to it, though I believe I must have felt in my inmost heart that it would be a crime to stand neutral while men of my own colour were butchered before my eyes. However that may be, certain it is that all of a sudden I ran very fast to the door and pulled it open, and then bidding Billy come after me and bring his bow and arrows, I caught up the drawbridge, threw it across the moat, and leapt over, calling to Hoggett to bring his men into our hut as quickly as might be. The sight of me suddenly sallying forth seemed to strike the savages with amazement, for they paused in the middle of their onset, and thus gave time to the seamen, not only to finish their priming, but also to make steps in retreat towards the hut; and as they came, Wabberley being first—as might be expected—Hoggett and Pumfrey and two or three more of the braver sort formed themselves into a rearguard, covering the retreat with their levelled muskets. However, before the second of the wounded men had come over the drawbridge the savages got the better of their astonishment and rushed on with horrible yells, whereupon I ranged myself alongside of Hoggett and the rest, calling to Billy to come too, and wondering why he had not yet joined me. Then we shot all together, the men with their muskets and I with bow and arrow, but I could not see what the effect of our shots was, partly because of the smoke, and partly because the savages were now such a wild mob that everything was confused. But in a moment I saw the big chief leaping with great strides before his men, who were close at his heels and no more than thirty yards from the moat. The seamen were helpless, for they had fired their pieces and could not recharge them in time; but I plucked another arrow from my quiver, and fitting it to my bow took as good aim as I could at the chief; and thankful I was that I had had a good deal of practice at what Billy called our guy, for when I let fly the arrow it sped very true, and struck the savage in the left side of his chest, just below the shoulder joint, and he fell upon his face, though I knew by his howling that he was not dead. The fall of their leader fairly daunted the rest of the savages, and they halted, and we seized this breathing space to get all the men across the moat, and then I caught up the drawbridge and ran behind the men into the hut, and we had got the door into its place by the time the savages came to the moat. When they saw that they were baulked they let forth the most astonishing cries I ever heard in my life, like the yelping of dogs rather than the cries of men; and while some carried their chief away, others ran round towards the lake side of the hut to see if there was any door there, or any weak spot there or at the other sides where they might attack us. And then, looking through a loophole, I saw seven or eight prostrate forms on the ground, the victims of the seamen's muskets.
The hut was very dim inside, all the light being what came through the loopholes, we never having made a window: but little as it was it was enough for Hoggett, and one or two more, to see to charge their pieces, and putting these through loopholes in different sides of the hut, they fired and so scattered the savages, who ran swiftly out of gun-shot. We saw them meet together a good distance off, towards the cliff, and one of the seamen said they were holding a parliament, and he hoped they had punishment enough and would make up their minds to go back to their own island.