He looked round him, at the blue sea, the white surge, the quiet ships. He heard the shouts below. He saw a boat put off from the shore and labour heavily towards one of the ships.
"God forgive me!" he groaned once more. "I have been killing men."
But the only man he was actually conscious of killing was the one at whom he had hurled his club in his last spasm. And when he got up heavily, and went down to him where he lay in the glare of the sun, he found the man was not dead, and he was glad. He carried him carefully to the partial shelter of a rock, and propped him up, and gave him water from a runlet close by. He drank deeply himself, and washed his hands and face and plunged his head under water. He noticed now for the first time that his white jacket was spattered all over with blood. He tore it off and flung it from him.
The reaction which followed his temporary possession left him limp and exhausted, and burdened with a heavy mental load which as yet he made no attempt at lightening.
Then he went slowly down the hill, and saw one of the schooners loosing her sails in a hurried and shifty fashion. From that he gathered that some of the invaders had escaped, and he was too unaccustomed a warrior to regret it.
The rest, who had followed the pursuit to the shore, were held back by no such considerations however. To them the yellow men were enemies to be smitten hip and thigh, to be destroyed root and branch. When they reached the beach and saw the broken boat-load lumbering towards the schooner, the Torch men and a number of natives flung themselves into one of the other boats and set off after them with the most final intentions.
The schooner caught the breeze and began to make way. The Torch men played on her with their Winchesters, a chance shot dropped the helmsman, her head fell off, and she was theirs. Some of the yellow men jumped overboard. For the rest—well, the Torches knew Captain Cathie's views, and the islanders were of a like mind.
Blair passed several dead men as he went down the hill, but saw no wounded ones. As he neared the remains of the village he came upon the bodies of the first victims of the invasion, brown men and women and children.
He had seen nothing of Evans and Stuart since the fight began. Evans he had placed in command of the Torches; Stuart had been in charge of the opposite side of the pass.
The brown men were leaping about the beach inflated with their victory. The Torch men had anchored the one schooner and were now securing the other.