"I'm all right," said Boyle, gruffly. "I am only sitting here because
my back is stiff."
Courtenay glanced at the somber shadow of Point Kansas, silhouetted
against the deep blue of the seaward arc.
"Suarez has retired to roost," he said. "He seems to be quite assured
that the Indians will never deliver a night attack."
"To-day's hammering should teach them to leave the Kansas alone in
future," said Christobal.
"I hope so, but Suarez and Tollemache agree that they are most
persistent wretches. Now, Boyle, you must obey the doctor. I am going
back to the saloon to give Miss Maxwell some documents I wish her to
see. Then, Tollemache and I will relieve the pair of you. All right,
Christobal; I promise to take my share of the blankets in the morning.
I shall be ready for a nap at four o'clock. At present I feel
particularly wide-awake."
He went to the cabin. They heard him unlock the door and enter. At
that instant a startling hail came from two sailors stationed on the
poop.
"Indianos!" they yelled.
The three men were on the spar deck a second later, straining their
eyes into the black vagueness of the water.
"Indianos!" shouted two other sailors on the forecastle, and from the
spar deck it seemed to be possible to distinguish several black objects
moving towards the ship.
"The siren, Boyle," cried Courtenay, striking a match. At once the
swelling note of the fog-horn smote the air and thundered away in
tremendous sound waves. Soon a hissing, fiery serpent ran up the port
wall of the chart-house, and a fine star rocket soared into the sky.
It illuminated a wide area of the bay, and revealed a number of crowded
canoes darting in on the ship from all sides. Courtenay grasped the
lines connected with the remaining mines and hauled for dear life.
Already the Indian rifle fire was crackling with vivid spurts of flame,
and stones and arrows were beginning to patter on the deck and bang
against the steel plates. Two of the dynamite bombs exploded with the
usual din, but it was impossible to ascertain their effect owing to the
yelling of the Indians.
The loud summons of the siren brought all hands from below; arms were
hastily secured, the fore and aft awnings closed, and Walker made shift
to hammer the engine-room door tight. The increasing violence of the
stone-slinging showed that the Alaculofs meant to press home this time.
Whatever their dread of the fiends who roam the world in the dark, they
had conquered it, and this latest phase in the stormy history of the
ship threatened to be its most trying one.