Still the silence persisted, and the little garrison felt some perplexity.
“Do you think they may have gone away?” whispered Casson, with a little accent of hope.
Bomba shook his head.
“I do not think so,” he answered in the same low tone. “They have come too far. They will not go back without trying to kill us. At first they thought the snake was magic. They were afraid. But Nascanora will talk to them big words and they will come back. We shall have to fight.”
The last word had scarcely left Bomba’s lips when a terrific chorus of yells rang out and a concerted rush of savages was made on the door of the cabin.
The door bent, but the stout bar of lignum vitæ, almost as strong as iron, refused to break.
Bomba leaped to his feet and grasped his bow. He fitted an arrow to the string and took aim through a porthole at the nearest figure.
The bow twanged. The arrow whistled on its way. There was a wild scream from the Indian, who threw up his hands and plunged forward on his face.
Casson had also snatched a bow and essayed to follow Bomba’s example. But his sight was defective and his hand tremulous, and the missile failed to find a target.
But one of the Indians had fallen anyway, and although this counted for little when the number of their foes was considered, the moral effect was on the side of the besieged. They had got in the first blow and served notice on the attackers that they would have to pay in lives for whatever they got.