She caught his look.
"We will beat them yet!" she cried again, and she smiled, not as a woman smiles, but with the joy of a warrior when the fray is toward.
There was no time for further speech. Three ladders were reared against the rock. They were so poised and held below that Jenks could not force them backwards. A fourth appeared, its coarse shafts looming into sight like the horns of some gigantic animal. The four covered practically the whole front of the ledge save where Mir Jan cleared a little space on the level.
The sailor was standing now, with the crowbar clenched in both hands. The firing in the valley slackened and died away. A Dyak face, grinning like a Japanese demon, appeared at the top of the ladder nearest to Iris.
"Don't fire!" shouted Jenks, and the iron bar crushed downwards. Two others pitched themselves half on to the ledge. Now both crowbar and revolver were needed. Three ladders were thus cumbered somewhat for those beneath, and Jenks sprang towards the fourth and most distant. Men were crowding it like ants. Close to his feet lay an empty water-cask. It was a crude weapon, but effective when well pitched, and the sailor had never made a better shot for a goal in the midst of a hard-fought scrimmage than he made with that tub for the head of the uppermost pirate.
Another volley came from the sands. A bullet ploughed through his hair, and sent his sou'wester flying. Again the besiegers swarmed to the attack. One way or the other, they must succeed. A man and a woman—even such a man and such a woman—could not keep at bay an infuriated horde of fifty savages fighting at close quarters and under these grievous conditions.
Jenks knew what would happen. He would be shot in the head or breast whilst repelling the scaling party. And Iris! Dear heart! She was thinking of him.
"Keep back! They can never gain the ledge!" she shrieked.
And then, above the din of the fusillade, the yells of the assailants and the bawling of the wounded, there came through the air a screaming, tearing, ripping sound which drowned all others. It traveled with incredible speed, and before the sailor could believe his ears—for he well knew what it meant—a shrapnel shell burst in front of the ledge and drenched the valley with flying lead.
Jenks was just able to drag Iris flat against the rock ere the time fuse operated and the bullets flew. He could form no theory, hazard no conjecture. All he knew was that a 12-pounder shell had flown towards them through space, scattering red ruin among the amazed scoundrels beneath. Instantly he rose again, lest perchance any of the Dyaks should have gained a foothold on the ledge.