Peter Gross made his way through the bush toward Carver. The latter was watching the proa with an anxious frown.
"They've got a steel jacket on her," he declared in answer to the resident's question. "So long as they don't show themselves we can't touch them. We couldn't go out to them in sampans if we had them; they'd sink us."
"Concentrate your fire on the water-line," Peter Gross suggested. "The armor doesn't probably reach very low, and some of these proas are poorly built."
"A good idea!" Carver bellowed the order.
The fire was concentrated at the stern, where the ship rode highest. That those on board became instantly aware of the maneuver was evident from the fact that a pirate, hideously attired with a belt of human hands, leaned over the bow to slash at the hempen cable with his kris. He gave two cuts when he straightened spasmodically and tumbled headlong into the sea. He did not appear above the surface again.
"Een," John Vander Esse, a member of the crew, murmured happily, refilling his magazine. "Now for nummer twee." (Number two.)
But the kris had been whetted to a keen edge. A gust of wind filled the proa's cumbersome triangular sail and drove her forward. The weakened cable snapped. The ship lunged and half rolled into the trough of the waves; then the steersmen, sheltered in their box, gained control and swung it about.
"Gif heem all you got," Anderson, a big Scandinavian and particularly fond of Rouse, yelled. The concentrated fire of the twenty-five rifles, emptied, refilled, and emptied as fast as human hands could perform these operations, centered on the stern of the ship. Even sturdy teak could not resist that battering. The proa had not gone a hundred yards before it was seen that the stern was settling. Suddenly it came about and headed for the shore.
There was a shrill yell from Jahi's Dyaks. Carver shouted a hoarse order to Jahi, who dashed away with his hillmen to the point where the ship was about to ground. The rifle-fire kept on undiminished while Carver led his men in short dashes along the edge of the bush to the same spot. The proa was nearing the beach when a white flag was hoisted on her deck. Carver instantly gave the order to cease firing, but kept his men hidden. The proa lunged on. A hundred feet from the shore it struck on a shelf of coral. The sound of tearing planking was distinctly audible above the roar of the waves. The water about the ship seemed to be fairly alive with fins.
"We will accept their surrender," Peter Gross said to Carver. "I shall tell them to send a boat ashore." He stepped forward.