"You are trapped, that's all," answered Dean, taking aim at the retreating canoe.
"Gad, is that Jim Dean?" Macfarlane came running forward. "Have you had to swim for it at the finish? Are we too late with the arms?"
"No, you're just in time," said Dean, watching the effect of his shot, "that is, if you have some men who can use them."
"You said you'd got plenty."
"I'd better own up," said the young man, "although it hasn't a pleasant taste in my mouth. I wrote that letter at Da Silva's dictation with a pistol at my head. There was likewise a pleasant alternative of being spitted over a slow fire. He wants this cargo himself. Odds are on it that we shall get an attack before dawn."
"Then, by the great James, we'll have some handshakes ready for them," declared Captain Bingham. "Now, you just loosen out some of our cargo, Mr. Macfarlane."
The expected attack came about half an hour before dawn, when the white mists at the river edge were thickest. Half a dozen big canoes filled with men shot out from the banks. There were one or two firearms among them, but these were discharged at too great a range for savage marksmen, and they did no more than emphasize the alarm, though that was not needed, for watchful eyes had kept a careful lookout on the Athena all night.
"They'll be monkeys, and a bit over, if they climb up here," observed Macfarlane; for the ship with no cargo in her stood high out of the water, but the attack had been arranged by a brain. The first canoe to reach the vessel's side wasted, for savages, little time in shouting and brandishing spears, but straightway made casts with looped lengths of grass rope, and before the defenders were quite up to the move half a dozen black bodies were swarming up toward the mizzen chains.
Shots accounted for three, but the other three got up to the rail, and it was an ugly fight before accounts were settled. Each canoe was supplied with these ropes, which were cast with amazing skill, and wherever there was the slightest hold or projection there was a rope quickly looped over, and a black body swarming up the next instant. Axes and cutting knives hacked at them, but many a savage got aboard, and there were gashes and spear thrusts in plenty among the crew of the Athena when dawn broke.