She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

The shouting grew in volume as we approached the shore, but I heard no white man’s shout. They had no breath to waste. We were perhaps an eighth of a mile from shore when Captain Nelson spoke quietly, saying that some twenty of the islanders were swimming out to meet us.

“Be ready with your knives and spades, boys,” he said. “Don’t let them get hold of your oars.”

The men were not supposed to have knives—at least, not with sharp points, but two or three of the Portuguese produced them, and took them between their teeth; and there were two knives in each boat, and the hatchet.

However, we pulled away from them and grounded on the beach. The shock of it very nearly sent me on my back in the bottom of the boat. I saw Captain Nelson covering our landing with his Spencer, and I saw him raise it to his shoulder and fire once. Then we tumbled out, I with my spade and my wagon-spoke. A spear whistled over my shoulder, making a flesh wound, and I gave a roar, and rushed upon the irregular line of islanders. As I ran, I remember vaguely that I laughed and shouted.

I have no clear recollection of what happened, but I do know that I had no fear of anything, I had an utter insensibility to pain, and a fierce joy in mere fighting. My wagon-spoke was a more handy weapon than the spade, which I used to ward off blows aimed at me, while I wielded the wagon-spoke as a club. It was a very good club, well-balanced and heavy, with sharp corners on the hub end. I was pretty strong then, and could swing it to some purpose. The natives—I do not like to call them savages—had been armed with spears of hard wood, as dangerous as steel-pointed spears, and with a war-club of peculiar shape, made of ironwood. Most of them had cast their spears by this time, and fought with their clubs, much as I did.

I do not know just how many islanders there were, but there must have been well over a hundred altogether. There were eighteen of us, and about twenty in the crew of the Battles; but many of the Battles’ men had been killed or disabled before we got there. There could not have been more than a half a dozen left on their feet. I saw Mr. Wallet transfixed by a spear within six feet of me, the spear in the hands of a gigantic islander. I cannot remember that I felt a pang of pity when I saw Mr. Wallet go down. I do not think that I had any feeling whatever, or that I should have had whoever it had been.

The man next to Mr. Wallet was evidently of a different calibre. He was bleeding from many wounds, and fighting like a fiend. The man with the spear wrenched it free from Wallet’s body, and lunged at this man. He leaped forward, tore the spear from the other’s grasp, and like lightning he plunged it into his body. It went clear through and came out at the back. It could not be got out again, as there were deep cuts upon it, making a series of saw-teeth on the edge of the long blade, and these teeth stuck on the ribs. He left it sticking there, looked quickly around, and caught sight of Captain Coffin. Apparently he had not seen him before.

I found out a little later that the man was Drew, but I guessed as much then. He stood still for a moment, and I saw the changing expressions chase each other across his face. There was despair—for an instant—and then a hardening, and the fierce light came back to his eyes, and a scornful smile curled his lips, but hope was gone. Here was Coffin. That meant that he would be carried back and hanged if he survived this fight. He had to die, anyway, and he preferred to die fighting; but there were two or three of us that he meant to take with him. His first move was against Captain Coffin, who was engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with two natives. These natives, I think, were not much given to hand-to-hand work. They preferred to stand off at a safe distance from their enemies and call names. In this case they had depended upon their numbers, and had been drawn into the close work and could not get out; but they were brave, although they preferred the method of ambush and massacre.

Up to this time I had been in a condition of exaltation with the pure love of fighting. Man is a fighting animal. If he were not he would never have got so far. Whether right or wrong, it seems to me hopeless to try to crush out that instinct—but that is by the way. The events just described had made their impression on my eye, but at the time they made none on my brain. Now I roused from my daze, my brain resumed its activity with a rush, and I yelled a warning.

Captain Coffin either did not hear me or did not dare to turn his head. Drew had grabbed up a war-club lying beside a dead savage, and was trying to get at him, but his way was not clear. I leaped for him and yelled again. Other islanders were coming to the help of those engaged with Captain Coffin, and he was becoming the centre of the fighting. He was much the biggest white man there. Macy was nearly as tall, but did not give the impression of bigness and power that Captain Coffin did. I caught a glimpse of Mr. Macy coming up on the other side of Captain Coffin, and remember wondering what had become of the Prince. It was the kind of a fight that I had imagined he would love. At the risk of my life I glanced about, and saw him just behind me, as if he was following to see that no harm came to me. There was the gleam of battle in his eye, his face was set, his lips drawn back in a tiger-snarl, showing his white teeth. They shone in his ebony face like a light at sea on a dark night.