"There does not appear to be so much stone-throwing now, but I suppose I ought not to go on deck?" she cried.
"It is not to be thought of, Miss Maxwell. Indeed, the captain asked me to come and bear you company."
"Just fancy those horrid Indians venturing to approach the ship to-night after the dreadful lesson they received this afternoon! And what will poor Senor Suarez say? He was so positive that they would never come near us after dark."
"I saw him, also, on the promenade deck," answered Christobal quietly.
"He had very much the semblance of a false prophet."
The Spaniard meant to meet grim fate with a jest on his lips. He had seen Suarez lying dead or insensible close to the rails. In fact, the unlucky Argentine was only separated by the thickness of the ship"s deck from the table near which Elsie was standing. Unless he were speedily rescued he would bleed to death.
"Ah, I heard Joey barking. He has gone aft," cried Elsie. "And what is that?" she added, moving suddenly towards the center of the saloon.
She had caught the fierce hiss of steam, and she was well aware that steam would only be brought into use if the Indians were endeavoring to climb the ship"s sides: not yet had it occurred that they could possibly be on board.
"Some of our friends the enemy have come near enough to be scalded,"
said the man, coolly. "That should soon drive them away. You are not frightened, I hope?"
"Not a bit. My only regret is that I am not permitted to help in the defense. It must be irksome for you, Dr. Christobal, to be stationed here when the ship is in danger. I am certain you would prefer to be up there with the others."
"Thank you for saying that. I wish you were able to read all my thoughts as accurately."
His right hand went to the pocket in which he had placed the revolver.
The stock appeared to have a peculiar clamminess as his fingers closed around it. Though he was proud of the iron nerve which had won him repute in his profession, he almost prayed now that it might not fail him at the last. What a horror, to be compelled with his parting glance to see this bright and gracious woman crumple up on the deck!
"But I know you are a brave man," she said with a confidant smile. "It demanded a higher courage to pa.s.s undaunted through the ordeal of the storm than to face these ill-armed Indians. Please don"t think I am a warlike person, but it makes my blood boil to find that there are wretches who regard our distress as their opportunity to murder us and pillage the ship. What have we done to them? If they are poor and hungry, and they would only come to us in a peaceful way, Captain Courtenay would give them all the stores he could spare."
Christobal heard ominous sounds from the fore part of the vessel. The revolver shooting had ceased, for the convincing reason there were no more cartridges. Courtenay"s double barrelled gun was being fired as quickly as he could reload it, and the sharp snap of one of the rifles in the Indians" possession was recognizable as coming from the p.o.o.p, the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress on the fore deck. Tollemache, Frascuelo, and three Chileans were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with nearly a score of savages; the doctor could distinguish the cries of the combatants, the irregular stamping of boot-shod feet.
He wondered why the girl, with her acute senses, did not grasp the significance of the yells and trampling on the deck, until it occurred to him, with a quick pang, that she was listening for one voice alone; owing to her ignorance of the desperate nature of the conflict raging overhead she had ears for nothing further.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him. There was a gravity in his eyes, which startled her.
"Elsie," he said, "you believe in the efficacy of prayer, don"t you?
Well, then, pray now a little. I shall be glad to think, when this time of danger has pa.s.sed, that we owed something to your invocation."
It was in his mind that he must shoot her within a few seconds, and the immeasurable agony of the thought reflected itself in his face. He had no notion that she would give his words a more direct significance than he intended them to bear. But a strange, hoa.r.s.e yell of triumph, the war-cry of an Alaculof leader who had hauled himself to the bridge and found it undefended, warned her in the same moment that all was not well with the defense.
She sprang towards the saloon stairs.
"Do you hear that?" she cried in a ringing voice. "There are Indians on board. Come! We must not stay here when our friends are fighting for their lives."
Christobal knew that this active girl would readily outstrip him in a race to the deck. She was already several feet distant, but he must detain her, no matter what the cost; if she fell into the clutches of the ghouls then over-running the _Kansas_, she might not be killed, but only wounded, and her sufferings would be inconceivable ere the end came.
"You are wrong," he shouted with convincing vehemence. "But, if you wish to see for yourself, at least allow me to go first."
While he was speaking, he ran forward. She thought he meant what he said, and waited for him. Then he caught her right arm firmly in his left hand.
"Let us wait here a moment or two," he breathed.
"No, no; I am going now. You shall not hold me back. You don"t understand. The man I love is up there, perhaps surrounded by savages.
Let me go, I tell you! If he is dying I shall die by his side. Let me go! Would you have me strike you?" She turned on him like an angry G.o.ddess, and strove to wrest herself from his grip. At that instant Tollemache and Frascuelo, the only survivors of the deadly struggle forward, were driven back by a rush of Indians. They caught sight of others leaping down the bridge companion.
"To the saloon, Courtenay!" roared Tollemache, clearing a path for himself with an iron bar which he swung in both hands. Followed by Frascuelo, he jumped inside the saloon gangway. Four savages followed, two entering through the doorway behind him. One raised a hatchet-like implement, and would have brained the Englishman had not Christobal whipped out his revolver and shot him through the body, releasing the girl"s wrist in his flurry. The Indian pitched headlong down the stairs, falling limply at Elsie"s feet. She stooped over the terrifying figure and seized the man"s weapon. Her eyes shone with a strange light. She felt her arms tingle. A wonderful power seemed to flow through her body, like a gush of strong wine. She was a.s.sured that she, unaided, could beat down all the puny, despicable creatures who barred the path to her lover. She vaulted over the writhing form of the Alaculof, and made to climb the stairs, but Christobal, admirably cool, fired again and brought another Indian to his knees.
The second Indian"s fall caused Frascuelo to trip; and the Chilean, locked rib to rib with a somewhat st.u.r.dy opponent, rolled into the saloon. Elsie drew back just in time, or the two men would have knocked her down. Even as they were turning over on the steep steps she saw Frascuelo"s knife seek that favorite junction of neck and collar-bone which Christobal had said was so well understood by those of his ilk. At the foot of the stairs the Indian lay still, and Frascuelo tried to rise. She helped him gladly. The awfulness of this killing no longer appalled her. Each dead or disabled Indian was one less obstacle between her and Courtenay. A third time the revolver barked, but Christobal missed. It did not matter greatly, as Tollemache had shortened his bar, using it twice as a miner delves at a rock. But the doctor did not forget that he had only three cartridges left, two of which were bespoke long before the fight began.
At last, then, the way was clear. Elsie would have mounted the stairs but an appealing hand detained her.
"I cannot walk, senorita. My leg has given way. And we can do no good there. They are all down."
A death chill gripped her heart at Frascuelo"s words.
"All down!" she repeated, white-lipped.
"I think so," said he, blankly. The man was dazed by the ordeal through which he had pa.s.sed.
As if to answer and refute him, Joey"s hysterical yelp sounded from a point close at hand, and they distinctly heard Courtenay"s loud command:
"This way, Boyle! Rally to the bridge!"
"You are mistaken!" shrieked Elsie, wrenching herself free from the Chilean"s grasp. Nothing short of violence would stop her now.
Tollemache darted out into the darkness, and she mounted the steps two at a time. Christobal panted by her side. He was determined not to be parted from her: if necessary, he would drag her away from any doubtful encounter on the battle-field of the deck. But his blood was aflame now with the l.u.s.t of combat. He wished to die fighting rather than by a suicide"s bullet.
They were not yet clear of the doorway when an extraordinary burst of cheering and shouts in English and Spanish a.s.sailed their wondering ears. The sounds seemed to come from the sea, from some point very near to the ship. A loud hubbub arose among the Indians; Courtenay, clubbing his gun, rushed past, with the dog at his heels, and ran up the bridge companion. They could follow his progress as he raced towards the port side, and they heard his amazed cry:
"What boats are those?"
"Your own, captain," came the answering yell, plainly audible above the din.
"That is Mr. Gray," screamed Elsie, and she, too, ran towards the bridge, with the doctor close behind.
"Sink every canoe you can get alongside of, and knock those fellows on the head who are swimming," roared Courtenay, who was so carried away by the fierceness of the fight from which he had just emerged that he would have given the same directions to the archangel Michael had that warrior-spirit come to his aid.
He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, he turned so suddenly when Elsie neared him.
"Ah, thank G.o.d you are safe!" he said, drawing her to him for an instant. "Stand there, dear heart!"
He placed her in the forward angle of the bridge rail, and leaned out over the side. She understood that she must not speak to him then, but a great joy overwhelmed her, and her eyes melted into tears.
Christobal, who had missed no word of Elsie"s frenzied protest in the saloon, nor failed to note the manner of Courtenay"s greeting, seemed to take the collapse of his own aspirations with the unmoved stoicism he had displayed in the face of danger.
"The ship"s boats--" he began, but the captain raised his gun and fired twice aft along the side of the vessel. Cries of pain and a good deal of splashing in the sea proved that he had expedited the departure of several Indians who were perched on the rails beyond the reach of Walker"s steam jet.
"The ship"s boats," went on Christobal calmly, "have turned up in some mysterious manner, just in the nick of time. A few minutes more, and they would have been too late."
"But where have they come from? Where can they have been all these days?" whispered Elsie, whose eyes were so dimmed that she perforce abandoned the effort to make out what was going on in the sea near the ship.
"My brain reels under the wildest guesses. At present we are chiefly concerned in the fact that they are here. Yet people say that the age of miracles has pa.s.sed: obviously a foolish remark."
Those who have been plucked from the precipice by a sleeve, as it were, are seldom able to concentrate their attention on the one thought which should apparently swamp all others. They either yield to the strain, and lapse into unconsciousness, or their minds become the arena of minor emotions, wherein trivialities play battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k with the tremendous issues of the moment. When a more extended knowledge of all that had happened, joined to a nicer adjustment of the time-factor in events, enabled Elsie to realise the extraordinary deliverance from death which she had been vouchsafed that night, she began to appreciate the service which Christobal rendered her in discussing matters with such nonchalance.