Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase: A Tale of the Sea

by James Fenimore Cooper

"Yard-arm and yard-arm!" shouted Captain Truck. "Lay 'em aboard, boys, and give 'em Jack's play!"

The whole party sprang forward, and from that moment all order ceased. Fists, hand-spikes, of which many were on the bank, and the butts of muskets, were freely used, and in a way that set the spears and weapons of the Arabs at defiance. The Captain, Mr. Sharp, John Effingham, Mr. Monday, the soi-disant Sir George Templemore, and the chief mate, formed a sort of Macedonian phalanx, which penetrated the centre of the barbarians, and which kept close to the enemy, following up its advantages with a spirit that admitted of no rallying. On their right and left pressed the men, an athletic, hearty, well-fed gang. The superiority of the Arabs was in their powers of endurance; for, trained to the whip-cord rigidity of racers, force was less their peculiar merit than bottom. Had they acted in concert, how ever, or had they been on their own desert, mounted, and with room for their subtle evolutions, the result might have been very different; but, unused to contend with an enemy who brought them within reach of the arm, their tactics were deranged, and all their habits violated. Still, their numbers were formidable, and it is probable that the accident to the launch, after all, decided the matter. From the moment the mêlée began not a shot was fired, but the assailants pressed upon the assailed, until a large body of the latter had collected near the raft. This was just as the launch reached the shore, and Paul perceived there was great danger that the tide might roll backward from sheer necessity. The gun was loaded, and filled nearly to the muzzle with slugs. He caused the men to raise it on their oars, and to carry it to a large box, a little apart from the confusion of the fight. All this was done in a moment, for three minutes had not yet passed since the captain landed.

Instead of firing, Paul called aloud to his friends to cease fighting. Though chafing like a vexed lion, Captain Truck complied, surprise effecting quite as much as obedience. The Arabs, hardest pressed upon, profited by the pause to fall back on the main body of their friends, near the raft. This was all Paul could ask, and he ordered the gun to be pointed at the centre of the group, while he advanced himself towards the enemy, making a sign of peace.

"Damn 'em, lay 'em aboard!" cried the captain: "no quarter to the blackguards!"

"I rather think we had better charge again," added Mr. Sharp, who was thoroughly warmed with his late employment.

"Hold, gentlemen; you risk all needlessly. I will show these poor wretches what they have to expect, and they will probably retire. We want the ship, not their blood."

"Well, well," returned the impatient captain, "give 'em plenty of Vattel, for we have 'em now in a category."

The men of the wilderness and of the desert seem to act as much by instinct as by reason. An old sheik advanced, smiling, towards Paul, when the latter was a few yards in advance of his friends, offering his hand with as much cordiality as if they met merely to exchange courtesies. Paul led him quietly to the gun, put his hand in, and drew out a bag of slugs, replaced it, and pointed significantly at the dense crowd of exposed Arabs, and at the heated iron that was ready to discharge the piece. At all this the old Arab smiled, and seemed to express his admiration. He was then showed the strong and well-armed party, all of whom by this time had a musket or a pistol ready to use. Paul then signed to the raft and to the reef, as much as to tell the other to withdraw his party.

The sheik exhibited great coolness and sagacity, and, unused to frays so desperate, he signified his disposition to comply. Truces, Paul knew, were common in the African combats, which are seldom bloody, and he hoped the best from the manner of the sheik, who was now permitted to return to his friends. A short conference succeeded among the Arabs, when several of them smilingly waved their hands, and most of the party crowded on the raft. Others advanced, and asked permission to bear away their wounded, and the bodies of the dead, in both of which offices they were assisted by the seamen, as far as was prudent; for it was all-important to be on the guard against treachery.

In this extraordinary manner the combatants separated, the Arabs hauling themselves over to the reef by a line, their old men smiling, and making signs of amity, until they were fairly on the rocks. Here they remained but a very few minutes, for the camels and dromedaries were seen trotting off towards the Dane on the shore; a sign that the compact between the different parties of the barbarians was dissolved, and that each man was about to plunder on his own account. This movement produced great agitation among the old sheiks-and their followers on the reef, and set them in motion with great activity towards the land. So great was their hurry, indeed, that the bodies of all the dead, and of several of the wounded, were fairly abandoned on the rocks, at some distance from the shore.