DRIVEN BACK
What the travelers had heard regarding the fierceness and courage of the red pygmies had not been one bit exaggerated. Never had such desperate fighting ever taken place. The red dwarfs, scarcely one of whom was more than three feet high, were strongly built, and there were so many of them, and they battled together with such singleness of purpose, that they were more formidable than a tribe of ordinary-sized savages would have been.
And their purpose was to utterly annihilate the enemy that had so unexpectedly come upon them. It did not matter to them that Tom and the others had arrived in an airship. The strange craft had no superstitious terror for them, as it had for the simpler blacks.
"Bless my multiplication tables!" cried Mr. Damon. "What a mob of them!"
"Almost too many!" murmured Tom Swift, who was rapidly firing his electric rifle at them. "We can never hope to drive them back, I'm afraid."
Indeed from every side of the plain, and even from the depths of the jungle the red dwarfs were now pouring. They yelled most horribly, screaming in rage, brandishing their spears and clubs, and keeping up an incessant fire of big arrows from their bows, and smaller ones from the blowguns.
As yet none of our friends had been hit, for they were sheltered in the airship, and as the windows were covered with a mesh of wire, to keep out insects, this also served to prevent the arrows from entering. There were loopholes purposely made to allow the rifles to be thrust out.
Mercifully, Tom and the others fired only to disable, and not to kill the red pygmies. Wounded in the arms or legs, the little savages would be incapable of fighting, and this plan was followed.
But so fierce were they that some, who were wounded twice, still kept up the attack.
Tom's electric rifle was well adapted for this work, as he could regulate the charge to merely stun, no matter at what part of the body it was directed. So he could fire indiscriminantly, whereas the others had to aim carefully. And Tom's fire was most effective. He disabled scores of the red imps, but scores of others sprang up to take their places.
After their first rush the pygmies had fallen back before the well-directed fire of our friends, but as their chiefs and head men urged them to the attack again, they came back with still fiercer energy. Some, more bold than the others, even leaped to the deck of the airship, and tried to tear the screens from the windows. They partly succeeded, and in one casement from which Ned was firing they made a hole.
Into this they shot a flight of arrows, and one slightly wounded the bank clerk on the arm. The wound was at once treated with antiseptics, after the window had been barricaded, and Ned declared that he was ready to renew the fight. Tom, too, got an arrow scratch on the neck, and one of the barbs entered Mr. Durban's leg, but the sturdy elephant hunter would not give up, and took his place again after the wound had been bandaged.
From time to time as he worked his electric gun, which had been charged to its utmost capacity, Tom glanced at the hut where the missionaries were prisoners. There was no movement noticed about it, and no sound came from it. Tom wondered what had happened inside--he wondered what was happening as the battle progressed.
Fiercely the fight was kept up. Now the red imps would be driven back, and again they would swarm about the airship, until it seemed as if they must overwhelm it. Then the fire of the white adventurers was redoubled. The electric rifle did great work, and Tom did not have to stop and refill the magazine, as did the others.
Suddenly, above the noise of the conflict, Tom Swift heard an ominous sound. It was a hissing in the air, and well he knew what it was.
"The gas bag!" he cried. "They've punctured it! The vapor is escaping. If they put too many holes in the bag it will be all up with us!"
"What's to be done?" asked Mr. Durban.
"If we can't drive them back we must retreat ourselves!" declared Tom desperately. "Our only hope is to keep the airship safe from harm."
Once more came a rush of the savages. They had discovered that the gas bag was vulnerable, and were directing their arrows against that. It was punctured in several more places. The gas was rapidly escaping.
"We've got to retreat!" yelled Tom. He hurried to the engine-room, and turned on the power. The great propellers revolved, and sent the Black Hawk scudding across the level plain. With yells of surprise the red dwarfs scattered and made way for it.
Up into the air it mounted on the broad wings. For the time being our friends has been driven back, and the missionaries whom they had come to rescue were still in the hands of the savages.
CHAPTER XXII
A NIGHT ATTACK
"Well, what's to be done?"
Tom Swift asked that question.
"Bless my percussion cap! They certainly are the very worst imps for fighting that I ever heard of," commented Mr. Damon helplessly.
"Is the gas bag much punctured?" asked Ned Newton.
"Wait a minute," resumed the young inventor, as he pulled the speed lever a trifle farther over, thereby sending the craft forward more swiftly, "I think my question ought to be answered first. What's to be done? Are we going to run away, and leave that man and woman to their fate?"
"Of course not!" declared Mr. Durban stoutly, "but we couldn't stay there, and have them destroy the airship."
"No, that's so," admitted Tom, "if we lost the airship it would be all up with us and our chances of rescuing the missionaries. But what can we do? I hate to retreat!"
"But what else is there left for us?" demanded Ned.
"Nothing, of course. But we've got to plan to get the best of those red pygmies. We can't go back in the airship, and give them open battle. There are too many of them, and, by Jove! I believe more are coming every minute!"
Tom and the others looked down. From all sides of the plain, hastening toward the village of mud huts, from which our friends were retreating, could be seen swarms of the small but fierce savages. They were coming from the jungle, and were armed with war clubs, bows and arrows and the small but formidable blowguns.
"Where are they coming from?" asked Mr. Damon.
"From the surrounding tribes," explained Mr. Durban. "They have been summoned to do battle against us."
"But how did the ones we fought get word to the others so soon?" Ned demanded.
"Oh, they have ways of signaling," explained Mr. Anderson. "They can make the notes of some of their hollow-tree drums carry a long distance, and then they are very swift runners, and can penetrate into the jungle along paths that a white man would hardly see. They also use the smoke column as a signal, as our own American Indians used to do. Oh, they can summon all their tribesmen to the fight, and they probably will. Likely the sound of our guns attracted the imps, though if we all had electric rifles like Tom's they wouldn't make any noise."
"Well, my rifle didn't appear to do so very much good this time,"
observed the young inventor, as he stopped the forward motion of the ship now, and let it hover over the plain in sight of the village, the gas bag serving to sustain the craft, and there was little wind to cause it to drift. "Those fellows didn't seem to mind being hurt and killed any more than if mosquitoes were biting them."
"The trouble is we need a whole army, armed with electric rifles to make a successful attack," said Mr. Durban. "There are swarms of them there now, and more coming every minute. I do hope Mr. and Mrs.
Illingway are alive yet."
"Yes," added Mr. Anderson solemnly, "we must hope for the best. But, like Tom Swift, I ask, what's to be done?"
"Bless my thinking cap!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "It seems to me if we can't fight them openly in the daytime, there's only one other thing to do."
"What's that?" asked Tom. "Go away? I'll not do it!"
"No, not go away," exclaimed Mr. Damon, "but make a night attack. We ought to be able to do something then, and with your illuminating rifle, Tom, we'd have an advantage! What do you say?"
"I say it's the very thing!" declared Tom, with sudden enthusiasm.
"We'll attack them to-night, when they're off their guard, and we'll see if we can't get the missionaries out of that hut. And to better fool the savages, we'll just disappear now, and make 'em believe we've flown away."
"Then the missionaries will think we're deserting them," objected Mr. Anderson.
But there was no help for it, and so Tom once more turned on the power and the craft sailed away.