"Now for it, my lads," whispered the mate. "Pull with all your might."
The men made the water hiss as they drew hard at the long tough ash blades, and above this sound they could hear the hurry and rattle of something going on aboard the yacht. Quick short orders were issued; then Captain Bradleigh's voice was heard again.
"Ahoy there! Sir John!"
"Right. Here we are."
What the captain said in reply was confined to the word "Thank--" The rest was smothered by a sharp crash, and a check which took the small boat in which Jack sat sharply up against the other's stern.
The crash was followed by a savage yelling and splashing; and as they went on again directly, the men pulling with all their might. Jack was conscious of struggling and blows, and he grasped the fact that they had rowed at full speed against the stern or bows of another canoe which had been invisible in the darkness, and that some of her occupants had seized the men's oars on the port side. The blows, he found, were delivered by their men to shake off their adversaries, some of whom he dimly saw struggling in the water as the boat passed on; and, unable to control himself, Jack leaned over and caught at a hand just within his reach, the fingers closing upon his in a fierce grasp and nearly jerking him out of the boat, a fate from which he was saved by Ned, who seized him round the middle and dragged him back.
"Got him?" cried the doctor excitedly.
"You should have said 'Got it,' sir," grumbled the man, with a drawing-in of his breath as if in pain. "But he's all right. I wish I was."
"What's the manner, man?"
"Him a-holding his gun like that. Oh, my crikey! What a whack I got on the cheek!"
"What an escape, Jack!" cried the doctor.
"But the poor wretch was drowning. Hark! their canoe must be sinking-- men struggling in the water."
"Never mind: let them," said the doctor. "They can swim like seals, and their canoe will float like a log."
"But the sharks!" panted Jack.
"We can't stop to think of them," said the doctor.--"Are you all right there?"
"Yes, and alongside," cried the mate, and there was the rattle of the oars being laid in.
"Thank heaven!" cried the captain from the deck, as both boats ground against the yacht's side. "Quick, all aboard! Now then, hook on those falls and up with the boats."
The boats were run up to the davits in regular man-o'-war fashion, the gangway was closed, and the men who were busy went on rigging up a stout net about six feet wide along from stanchion to stanchion, and shroud to shroud, while, after a word or two of congratulation upon their safe return, the captain went on giving his orders.
"Nearly surprised us, Sir John," he said; "and it would have been awkward with us so weak-handed. All go to your stations; they may try to board at any time. Here, Mr Jack, you'd better go below."
"What for?" said Jack quietly.
"To be out of danger, sir," said the captain angrily. "Quick, sir, I have no time to be polite."
"Are you going below, father?" said the lad.
"I? No, my boy. I shall stay."
"So shall I," said Jack; and a voice whispered at his ear--
"That's it, Mr Jack. You stop; we don't want to be out of the fun."
Sir John was silent, and stood behind the captain, who looked out ahead at the canoes, shown up clearly by the search-light as four lay in a cluster together, their occupants watching the light as if puzzled.
The next moment the light was sent sweeping round to the other side; and there, plainly seen, was the fifth canoe, its gunwale level with the surface, and only its high stem and prow standing well above the water.
And there clinging to her on either side were her crew, paddling away by striking the water, and sending the injured vessel slowly along, so as to cross the yacht's stem, and take her to where the rest lay waiting, as if their leaders were uncertain what to do.
"There, you see, Jack," said the doctor. "But what a crash! our speed saved us from being stove in, just as the tallow candle is said to pass through a deal board when fired from a gun."
"Do you think they are all there?" said Jack.
"Oh yes, they would help one another; but I don't think we should have been all here if they had had their way with us."
They stood watching the damaged canoe till it had passed the yacht, and then the light was suddenly turned so that it lit up the four canoes, in which there might have been close upon a couple of hundred men; and to Jack's horror he saw that they had altered their position, and were prow toward them in regular battle array, and only about forty or fifty feet apart.
"Does that mean coming on?" said Jack, and he thought of their own weakness.
"I expect so," replied the doctor; "but I dare say a few volleys of small shot will give them such a sickening of the white man's magic that they will turn tail. Why look at that."
The light was now turned on to its full power, and the man who managed it kept on changing its position so that it blazed right upon each canoe in turn, with a singular result, each doing the same. For, as if startled by the light, the occupants began to paddle backward in a hurried way, till the beam was shifted, when they ceased.
"Why they're regularly scared at the lamp, captain," cried Doctor Instow.
"Yes, that's so, sir," replied the captain; "and it looks as if they knew that their deeds were evil, shunning the light in this fashion; but it can't last. They'll soon get used to it; and if they can only be scared until I get the steam up I don't mind."
"Are you getting the steam up, captain?" asked Jack eagerly.
"Yes; can't you hear the fires going?"
Jack had been too much excited to notice any one special thing in the preparations to resist an attack, but he was now conscious of a dull humming sound which he knew was the softened roar of the furnaces.
"The yacht's like a useless log lying here becalmed," continued the captain; "but once I have a good head of steam on she becomes a living creature, and I can do anything with her--and with them if they don't behave themselves. I don't want to run down and drown any of the poor wretches; but if they attack us they must take the consequences."
"Poor ignorant creatures!" said Sir John. "I suppose they don't know our power."
"That's it," replied Captain Bradleigh. "The more savage a man is, according to my experience, the more vain and conceited he seems. He believes in himself thoroughly, for he is generally vigorous and active as a wild beast, and looks down on an ordinary white man with a kind of scorn. You would be surprised, Mr Jack, what a number of lessons have to be given him before he will believe in our machinery and weapons of war, unless you can appeal to his brain by making him believe that they are what the Scotchman calls uncanny. If you once find him thinking that steam, or the gun which kills a man a couple of hundred yards away, is the result of fetish or the bunyip, or a diabolical spirit, he's the greatest coward under the sun. Give them another brush over with the light, my lad."
The man in charge of the great star sent the rays sweeping over the sea, once more making the dazzling beam play here and there at his will, upon first one and then another of the blacks in the canoes, with the result that they were all thrown into a state of confusion, each as the light dazzled his eyes ducking down right into the bottom of his vessel, or trying to bend behind his neighbour and to escape from the terrible blazing eye, which seemed to go through him.
"That's right," said Sir John.
"Now if we can only keep them off for an hour longer I don't care. Give me that time and I'll chase them all out to sea before they know where they are, or send them to the bottom if they don't mind."
The suppressed excitement on board the yacht was tremendous, but the men worked without a word. The thick net was strongly fixed so as to act as a barrier to the enemy who might try to climb on board. The yacht's guns were cast loose, well shotted with small grape, and cartridges were ready for use. The men whose duty it was to repel attempts at boarding stood ready with their sword-bayonets at the ends of their rifles, and the engineer and firemen were below doing their best to get up steam, the humming noise going merrily on the while.
The captain paced the deck very calmly and quietly, night-glass in hand, with which he watched the movements of the savages, and handed it more than once to Jack to take a look through at the enemy, making remarks the while about their bows and arrows, spears and war-clubs, while the doctor and Sir John stood aft, well-armed and ready for any emergency, Sir John's servant being close at hand.
"Don't seem quite the thing, Jack," said the doctor, as the lad came along the dark deck to where they stood.
"What doesn't seem quite the right thing?" said the boy, glad to have an opportunity to talk and have some cessation of the terrible strain which kept his excited nerves at the highest pitch of tension.