“He did more. He drove me away.”
“Against your will?”
“No. Am I not one of the ship’s company? Is he not the centurion? He says to this woman, Go, and she goeth, nor does she stand upon the order of her going. Oh, please don’t look at me as if I were cracked. Surely one may mingle the Bible and Shakespeare in an emergency?”
“One may also tear linen sheets into strips,” said Christobal, gravely. Elsie’s quip had saved the situation. He attributed her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes to the fever of the threatened fight.
She applied herself eagerly to the task. Already the fume and agony of vain regret were striving to conquer the ecstasy which had flooded her whole being. She remembered that passionate longing to be clasped in Courtenay’s arms which she experienced when she saw him in the canoe, and now, after draining to the dregs the cup of bitterness she had forced on herself during these later days, here she was, ready as ever to quaff the love potion. Poor Elsie! She longed for the waters of Lethe; haply they are denied to young women with live blood in their veins.
Courtenay, meanwhile, was examining the advancing flotilla. His brain was conning each detail of the Alaculof array, but his heart was whispering gladly:
“In another moment you would have kissed her and told her you loved her. You know you would, so don’t deny it! Ah! kissed her, and held her to your breast!”
So Suarez spoiled a pretty bit of romance by his ruffling agitation over some bawl of savage frenzy, for Courtenay, of course, would have laughed away the girl’s protests that she was usurping another woman’s place. It was really a pity that the man from Argentina had not found something else to occupy his mind at that precise juncture in the affairs of two young people who were obviously mated by the discriminating gods. A good deal of suffering and heartburning would then have been avoided; but perhaps it was just the whim of fate that the captain’s love affair should follow the irregular course mapped out for his ship, and the Kansas was not yet re-launched on the ocean high-road to London, no, not by any manner of means.
In fact, if the confident demeanor of the paddling warriors in the canoes were destined to be justified, the big steamer was in parlous state. Her vast bulk and sheer walls of steel did not daunt them. They came on steadily against the rapid current, and spread out into a crescent when within a few hundred yards of the ship. Then three men, crouching in the bows of different canoes, produced rifles hitherto invisible and began to shoot. The bullets ricochetted across the ripples, and Courtenay saw that the savages did not understand the sighting appliances. They were aiming point-blank at the vessel, in so far as they could be said to aim at anything, and the low trajectory caused the first straight shot to rebound from the surface of the water and strike a plate amidships. The loud clang of the metal was hailed by the Alaculofs with shouts of delight. Probably they had no fixed idea of the distance the tiny projectiles would carry. Joey began to bark furiously, and the Indians imitated him. The hammer-like blow of the bullet, the defiance of the dog, and the curiously accurate yelping of the men in the canoes, mixed in wild medley with the volleyed echoes of the firing now rolled back from the opposing cliffs. In such wise did the battle open. Courtenay, more amused than anxious, did not silence the terrier, and Joey’s barking speedily rose to a shrill and breathless hysteria. Some savage, more skilled than his fellows, reproduced this falsetto with marvelous exactness. There never was a death struggle heralded by such grotesque humor; it might have been a tragedy of marionettes, a Dutch concert on the verge of the pit.
The long-range firing was kept up for several minutes, much to Courtenay’s relief, as Suarez was certain that the Indians’ stock of cartridges did not amount to more than four hundred at the utmost. The canoes crept gradually nearer, and bullets began to strike the ship frequently. One glanced off a davit and shattered a couple of windows in the chart-house. This incident aroused even greater enthusiasm than the first blow of the attack. There was renewed activity among the paddle wielders. Two canoes were not fifty yards from the most southerly floating mine. Courtenay commenced to haul in the slack of one among the half-dozen thin cords: he turned to tell Suarez to be ready for the duty which had been entrusted to him, when his glance happened to travel towards the mouth of the bay.