So Cutbush dropped the pole and the boat drifted on broadside with the current, its occupants calmly waiting the moment of collision. As the distance decreased from ten yards to five, Barnabas craned his neck forward, and shaded his eyes to peer over the lower bulwark. "It's queer," he muttered. "I've been here before, an' I don't mind seein' that—"
Just then a startling thing happened. The whole island was seen to lurch visibly to one side, and at the same instant something flashed and glittered amid the fringe of bushes.
"Look!" Godfrey whispered, hoarsely.
"Down for your lives, men!" yelled Barnabas. "It's a trap! Keep low, an' don't let 'em get aboard."
The entire party dropped like a flash, and grabbed their muskets. A terrible instant of silence followed, broken by a howl from Cato and a whimper of fright from Molly, who was lying flat on the bottom in her mother's arms. Then a volley of shots rang out from the fiendishly contrived ambuscade, and more than one ball tore through the thick bulwark.
But happily no one was hurt, and Barnabas, McNicol, and Nathan at once fired through the three loopholes at which they were posted. A yell of agony blended with another fusillade from the unseen foe, and now a quicker current drove the heavy flat broadside against the mysterious little island.
There was a crash of timber meeting timber and a sound of branches smiting the water. Then, with shrill and blood-curdling yells, four painted Indians scrambled over the bulwark and dropped into the boat. At the same instant a little one-eyed man, holding a musket high overhead in one hand, pulled himself aboard at the bow.