The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands

by Roger T. Finlay

They were still coming. Soon the ammunition would be gone. The boys realized this. They were determined to die fighting, and they began to feel for their knives which must be the final act in the great tragedy.

Then they heard something louder than the cracks of their own weapons and the shrieks of the devils around them. Some one was shooting. They could see the startled faces of the savages, as they turned and swung around. The attack ceased, and Muro sprang up on the log, with a yell.

Could he be mad? The boys were stupefied. "Come on!" cried Muro. "Here is John!"

This announcement, coming at an unexpected mo[p. 224]ment, was such a reaction to the poor boys, that they could hardly raise themselves. Another volley; they could hear it now. There was another yell from the savages, and then they could be seen rushing through the brush.

The men with John ran up, and John struggled forward through the weeds. "Are you hurt?" asked John, as he sprang to the side of the boys.

"No! no!" cried George, and he fell down, overcome with the excitement, while Harry could not speak for a moment.

"That was a close call," said John. "We heard the first shots an hour ago, and we turned to take this direction. Then we heard nothing for a long time, and as we were coming over the hill beyond the firing commenced but we could see nothing, so we hurried forward and soon saw the smoke, and then the savages coming from the bush, and directly to the east we noticed fifty or more coming this way, but they are not here yet."

"I wonder how many attacked us?" asked George.

"It is difficult to tell, but it is safe to say that there were at least two hundred in the fight. Oh, no; the boys will not follow them up very far," said John, as Harry looked apprehensively toward the direction that John's men were going.

He blew the whistle, and gradually the men straggled in, reporting that the savages appeared terror-stricken, as they had had no idea that there was another force in the neighborhood, and they did not stop to consider the possible number.