"Ah, now, they're just excited!" answered Samuel Salt, squinting curiously up at the Bridgemen, but Nikobo, with her short legs resting on the top rail of her raft, squealed out a dolorous warning.
"Fighters! Fighters! These Pikers look savager than the Leopard Men. Best back away, Master Captain, while there's still time."
"Oh, look! LOOK! There's a ship on the mountain," cried Tandy, jerking Samuel's sleeve, "right there where that torrent comes down between the bridges, a three-master, larger than the Crescent Moon."
"Then it's a battle!" boomed Samuel, bringing his helm hard around. "Stand by to man the guns. 'Hoy, all hands, 'hoy!" While his shipmates sprang to attention, Samuel darted from mast to mast, touching the buttons on his sail controls.
"AYE DE AYE OH LAY!" The shrill unexpected cry came from the highest bridge on the island, and was immediately taken up and repeated by all the Pikemen on the lower bridges. It resulted in such a mad medley of yodels that Ato clapped both hands to his ears and Nikobo plunged her head in her drinking tub.
"Not only fighters, but singers!" grunted Ato, swinging the port gun into an upright position. "Beef, beans and barley bread! What a rumpus!" Tandy, who with Roger had charge of the other gun, could not help but admire the calm way Samuel Salt ignored the dreadful outcry from the bridges. Whether the pikes of the islanders could be flung down upon them was still a question, but as Tandy looked anxiously aloft, he saw the great white-sailed ship of the Mountain Men sweeping toward the torrent. It paused for a breathless instant on the top and then came rushing down upon them. They were right in the path of the descending vessel which would strike them with such force both ships would surely be demolished.
"I am a King's son and the son of a King's son," shuddered Tandy, gritting his teeth and waiting desperately for the order to fire. "I can bear anything."
"Not this! Not this!" chattered Roger, sliding wildly up and down the shiny cannon. "It will shiver your timbers—it will shiver all of our timbers. What in salt ails the Captain? Why doesn't he give the order to fire and pepper these rascals before they reach us? Oh, oh! Oh—hh!" But the only orders that came from the Captain were for Nikobo.
"Overboard, Lassie! Dive off! Quick, now, and swim for your life," bawled Samuel Salt, waving both arms frantically at the hippopotamus. As Nikobo with a frightened squeal let down the back rail of her pen and slid into the sea, Tandy felt a quiver and jerk through the whole length of the Crescent Moon. Glancing aloft, he saw a strange change in the sails. Where before they had been sturdy single stretches of canvas, they were now great swelling balloon sails, each a perfect air-filled sphere. As the ship from the mountain with an angry swish catapulted down from the torrent into the sea, the Crescent Moon rose buoyantly into the air, allowing the enemy craft to shoot harmlessly beneath her bow.