"Wake up! Wake up!" he shouted, shaking the heavy sleepers with unsparing hand. "The savages are upon us!"
CHAPTER XVIII
A SURPRISE FOR THE INVADERS
Hastily throwing on portions of their clothing and seizing their rifles and revolvers, which, by a general custom, were in variably kept loaded, the four white men prepared to dash out of the house.
"Don't show a light on any account," cautioned Mr. McKay. "We must let the storehouses go and hold this terrace."
It was a complete surprise. The natives, who had wrested Ahii from its former owners, had followed up their success in driving off the invaders by paying a return visit to Ni Atong. The population of that island had either been killed or reserved for a more lingering death, and from one of the latter their captors learnt of the existence of McKay's Island and its wealth of metal goods so prized by the South Sea Islanders.
Accordingly ten large canoes set out on an expedition to raid the white men's dwelling.
Arriving within sight of the peak of the island, they kept in the offing till night, then with torches blazing aloft they found the passage into the lagoon, and, paddling rapidly, landed on the beach below the settlement.
Thereupon three hundred powerful savages, armed with club, bow, spear, and knife, and bearing torches, began the ascent of the path that led to the three terraces.