With that he darted abruptly to the left, for the animal trail that would lead him to his ladder. He had no more than gained it when, with a chorus of demoniac yells and screams of triumph, the straggling pursuers broke madly into the clearing and darted across it for the trail.
Even then, afraid that Elaine might fail to perform her allotted task, Grenville sped up his ladder like a creature of the wild, and came to the end of his platform.
The Dyaks were immediately storming the barrier, the breach of which was promptly discovered, and Sidney's alarm was jerkily resounding.
Like a spirit of maternity, nerved to any ordeal by the sense of protecting one she loved, Elaine crouched low beside the cannon, her dilated eyes intent upon the trail. She had clung to a hope that Grenville might yet appear in time to take charge of the gun. But suddenly now, to her terror, four or more figures darkly appeared on the ledge above the gate, coming swiftly towards her position.
She thrust the torch desperately down upon the fuse, saw the powder spew out a shower of sparks, and rolled and tumbled hotly from the place.
She was suddenly agonized by the thought that the thing would fail, but Grenville had barely reached the solid rock when the cannon abruptly thundered.
A wide-spreading cataract of fire was projected in a red-and-yellow cone across the space between the brink and the wall behind the trail, as the powder poured its punishment into the ranks of the creatures leaping upward to destruction. The detonation, sharp, crisp, appallingly loud in the stillness of the island, fairly stunned Elaine, now kneeling helplessly among the rocks.
Shrieks of dismay and sudden agony immediately succeeded the explosion, while its echoes still rattled wildly back from the distant hills of rock. In the utter darkness, by contrast following the one brief glare, there was nothing to be seen along the path. But wounded men were staggering downward, in blind retreat, already abandoned by their unscathed companions, in flight below the gate.
Grenville had run to his store of bombs, instead of coming straight to the gun. He meant to be prepared against a second attack. As his active figure now appeared where he hastened brinkward, watching both trail and clearing, Elaine beheld him at last. She arose and stumbled towards him, her feet still heavy with her dread, her heart wildly leaping in joy.
"Were you shot?" she cried. "Are you hurt?"