The three men were on the spar deck a second later, straining their eyes into the black vagueness of the water.
“Indianos!” shouted two other sailors on the forecastle, and from the spar deck it seemed to be possible to distinguish several black objects moving towards the ship.
“The siren, Boyle,” cried Courtenay, striking a match. At once the swelling note of the fog-horn smote the air and thundered away in tremendous sound waves. Soon a hissing, fiery serpent ran up the port wall of the chart-house, and a fine star rocket soared into the sky. It illuminated a wide area of the bay, and revealed a number of crowded canoes darting in on the ship from all sides. Courtenay grasped the lines connected with the remaining mines and hauled for dear life. Already the Indian rifle fire was crackling with vivid spurts of flame, and stones and arrows were beginning to patter on the deck and bang against the steel plates. Two of the dynamite bombs exploded with the usual din, but it was impossible to ascertain their effect owing to the yelling of the Indians.
The loud summons of the siren brought all hands from below; arms were hastily secured, the fore and aft awnings closed, and Walker made shift to hammer the engine-room door tight. The increasing violence of the stone-slinging showed that the Alaculofs meant to press home this time. Whatever their dread of the fiends who roam the world in the dark, they had conquered it, and this latest phase in the stormy history of the ship threatened to be its most trying one.
Courtenay, who seemed to be everywhere at once, lighted torches which were fastened to the empty davits in readiness for a night alarm. He had used the last rocket on board, but the flares would burn for fifteen minutes at least. By their light the defenders were able to shoot or smash the skulls of several savages who climbed up roughly contrived grapnells fashioned out of bent sticks and thongs of hide. But there were only thirteen men to repel an attack which developed at fifty points simultaneously. Ere the torches flickered in their sockets the savages had swarmed over poop and bows. They were tearing at the canvas shields and sweeping the hurricane deck with showers of missiles. Tollemache was injured, and Walker. Courtenay had his forehead cut open. Suarez fell insensible while he was bellowing curses through the megaphone in the vain hope of frightening the determined enemy. Two Chileans were down, one struck with a stone and the other shot through the lungs.
So, at last, the Kansas was in the grip of a savage and implacable foe. Courtenay, while hauling a steam hose to the weakest point, the after part of the promenade deck, met Christobal. He clutched the Spaniard in a way there could be no mistaking.
“Go below!” he muttered in a terrible voice. “I cannot leave the deck. You must go. And, for God’s sake, don’t tell her! Let her die without knowing!”
CHAPTER XV.
IN WHICH THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
When Christobal descended to the saloon he found Elsie holding the excited dog. It was instantly perceptible that she was not aware of the grave position of affairs on deck. She knew, of course, that the Alaculof menace had become active again, but the first attack had been beaten off so easily that she was sure this later effort would fail.
The dog was better informed. His alert ears told him that there were strange beings on board. He struggled so resolutely that Elsie freed him just as the Spaniard reached the foot of the stairs. Forgetting his wounded paw, and all a-quiver with the fine courage of his race, Joey galloped up the companion and disappeared. Elsie was much distressed by her four-footed friend’s useless pugnacity.