Telling Tollemache to mount guard, he raced back to the saloon hatch
and summoned assistance. The others searched the ship in small
detachments, but the Indians were gone; it was manifest that none
beyond those driven off at the first onset had secured a footing on
deck. Then, taking the risk of being shot at, Courtenay ordered the
lights to be turned on, and the first person he saw clearly was Elsie.
He was almost genuinely angry with her.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
She was learning not to fear his brusque ways. He was no carpet
knight, and men who carry their lives in their hands do not pick and
choose their words.
"I thought you were in danger, so I came to help," she said calmly.
"You must go back to your cabin at once."
"Why? Of what avail is the safety of my cabin if you are killed?"
A woman's logic is apt to be irritating when one expects a flight of
arrows, or, it may be, a gunshot, out of the blackness a few feet away.
"For goodness' sake, stand here, then," he cried, seizing her arm, and
compelling her to shelter behind the heavy molding which carried the
bridge.
She did not object to his roughness. In the midst of actual peril,
impressions are apt to be cameo-cut in their preciseness, and she liked
him all the more because he treated her quite roughly. Of course, the
mere presence of a woman at such a time was a hindrance. But she was
determined not to return to her stateroom, and, indeed, her obstinacy
was reasonable enough, seeing the condition of affairs on board the
Kansas.
The captain quitted her for a moment in order to dispatch a Chilean
sailor for a lantern and a long cord. He wished to investigate the
captured canoe.
Christobal, who had made the round of the promenade deck, came up.
"Oh, were you here, too?" he asked, on seeing the girl.
"I am here, if that is what you mean," she cried. "I heard Joey
barking, and the shots that followed. Naturally, I wished to find out
what had happened."
"Sorry. I imagined you were sleepless, like myself, and had joined
Courtenay during his watch. That explanation must have sufficed. In
any case, we have other things to trouble us at present."
Elsie had never before heard the Spaniard speaking so offhandedly. She
gave small heed to his petulance; aroused from sound slumber by the
alarm of an Indian attack--thrilled by the horror of the thought that
she might fall into the clutches of the callous man-apes which infest
the islands of southwest America--she was in no mood to disentangle
subtleties of speech.
"Do you think they have left us?" she murmured, shrinking nearer to the
iron shield which Courtenay seemed to think would protect her.