I started to swim back, pushing my dishpan ahead of me. The sun began to
warm things up and it was a lot more comfortable than it had been on my
first trip across. I just poked along, enjoying myself and hoping
breakfast would be kept warm for me. That was as near as I came to
having breakfast for quite some time. When I got back to the citadel I
had something to think about besides eating; in fact, I had before I got
to the citadel.
I was about a hundred yards from the citadel and going easy when I heard
a splashing off to one side. I raised up, and there, not two hundred
feet away, was a raft with two Japanese on it. They hadn’t seen me, but
were making for the citadel as fast as they could go. I got as low in
the water as was possible to anything but a fish, and put on full steam.
It was lucky they had such a clumsy raft and such rotten paddles or I
couldn’t have made as good time as they did, but I managed to keep ahead
and gain a little.
When I got close to shore I raised my head and let out a bellow:
“Mark Tidd! Hey! Look out!”
I hadn’t seen anybody around the citadel and thought maybe the Japanese
were going to take them by surprise—and I was right, as I found out
later. Plunk had been on watch, and because he was all tired out he had
gone to sleep for a few minutes. My yell woke him up, and the rest of
them, too. After that things moved fast.
I got to shore and made a dash for some clothes. I wanted more on than a
towel if there was going to be a fight. Pants and a shirt aren’t exactly
armor, but fighting with nothing on at all does make you feel sort of
_exposed_. I ducked up the stairs, and as I went I happened to look
across to the other side of the island. There came wallowing another
raft with two Japanese on it. We were being attacked from two sides.
I gave another yell. Mark came rushing out and saw what was going on.
“G-g-git into your clothes quick,” says he; and I did.
When I came out both rafts were near the shore and Mark and Plunk and
Binney were shooting at them with their slingshots, but their attention
was divided. I joined in with Plunk, but in a jiffy we saw a third raft
coming for the end of our island with The Man Who Will Come on it. Three
sides to defend!
“Ho, Mark!” I yelled. “Here comes another detachment.”
He just took one look. “Make for the citadel,” says he. “Up-stairs,
quick, and p-p-pull the stairs after you.”
My, but he was excited! and the way he stuttered sounded like hail
falling on a tin roof.
We didn’t lose a minute, but made for the stairs and hauled them up.
When we were safe on the second floor Plunk says:
“What’s this for? Now they can land all they want to.”
“Yes,” says Mark. “We’d ’a’ had a f-fine chance to keep them off. Three
parties of ’em. We might have kept off one or two, but some of ’em would
have been sure to l-land, and where’d we have been? It was good
strategy. They forced us to retreat—but it would have been rotten
strategy for us to have stood and fought. As it is we drew off our army
without l-l-loss and occupied a strong defensive position. If we’d
stayed we might have lost an army corps or so.”
“Wish we had one of them aeroplanes,” says Plunk.
“We hain’t,” says I. “Nor we hain’t got balloons nor submarines. We
hain’t got anythin’—not even a chance.”
“We’ve got a chance,” says Mark, sharp-like, “till we’re driven off the
roof. We’ll make the enemy take this floor, and then we’ll r-r-retreat
to the next, and then, by Jimminy! we’ll take to the roof. I don’t want
to hear any more talk about no chance. We’ve got all the chance we
need.”
All this time we were keeping our eyes on the Japanese, who had landed
and seemed sort of surprised they did it so easy. They came
cautious-like, because I guess we’d made them think a bit in the last
fight and they didn’t want to walk _slam_ into a trap. They gathered off
among the spruce-trees and had a council of war. Then they came toward
the citadel in a body, with The Man walking ahead.
He was considerable improved, but it would be several days before he’d
be fit to go to a party. His eye-glass was there, and his dude clothes,
but we had his cane. Somehow he didn’t look natural without it. It
seemed like that cane was a part of him, like it had grown on him.
They came up close, and then Mark gave the word to fire. We let them
have several good licks with our slingshots, and they backed off for
another talk. Next time they came on the run, and before we could pelt
them enough to do any good they were under the gallery where we couldn’t
hit them. But we could hear them moving around, and, by laying down on
our stomachs, we could see them through cracks between the boards.
First they went inside, looking for a stairway, but of course they
didn’t find any. We were just out of stairways and didn’t expect to get
any more for quite a while.
We held a council of war ourselves.
“There’s just t-three ways they can get up,” says Mark. “One is to get
the stairs lowered, one is to climb up over the front balcony with
l-l-ladders, and the last is to get into a second-story window on the
west side with a ladder. They can’t attack the back. The water keeps ’em
off t-t-there.”
“If I was goin’ to attack,” says I, “I’d send three men and maybe four
to come up ladders to the front balcony. While they were bangin’ around
there, attractin’ attention, I’d have one man sneak up into one of those
west windows, and come creeping across behind us to cut down the
stairs.”
“G-good for you, Tallow,” says Mark. “How would you guard against it?”
“Why,” says I, after scratching my head a minute, “I guess I’d fasten
the windows so nobody could get in.”
“F-f-first class,” says Mark. “Now if we could only think of some way to
f-fasten ’em.”
“Why,” says I, “they’ve got fasteners!”
“Yes,” says he, “but how about the glass! They could b-burst it and
reach in to unlock ’em.”
That was a fact. We couldn’t nail them, because we didn’t have any
nails, and anyhow, it wouldn’t have done much good, for a man who had
his mind set on it could have smashed through, anyhow.
“There ain’t but one way,” says Mark, “to keep the Japanese out of those
windows, and that’s to w-w-watch ’em. All the time we’ve got to keep
track of f-five Japanese. Somebody’s got to keep his eye on the windows,
somebody’s got to watch the s-stairs, and the rest of us have got to be
ready for an attack here in front.”
“Good!” says I. “Post your guards.”
“Ever read of cliff-dwellers?” says Mark.
“I’ve heard tell of ’em. But right now I’m more curious about Japanese.”
“Huh!” says he. “We m-m-might as well get as much pleasure out of this
mix-up as possible. You can get p-pleasure out of sittin’ on a tack if
you go at it right. We’ll pretend we’re cliff-dwellers in a stone castle
up on a shelf on a m-mountain. The only way to attack us is to scale the
cliff with ladders. A tribe of the enemy has come down on to us.”
“I’ve heard,” says Plunk, “that cliff-dwellers ate dogs.”
“Guess,” says Mark, with a grin, “we won’t pretend that far. Motu’s dog
don’t look like he’d cut up into good steaks.”
“That satisfies me,” says Binney. “Cliff-dwellers we are, and, if my
ears ’ain’t gone to dreamin’, those enemies are gettin’ ready to stir up
somethin’.”
“Quick!” says Mark. “You, Binney, get to the west cliff where the leetle
cave openin’s are. Plunk, you watch the m-main ladder that’s hauled up.
Motu and Tallow and I will f-f-fight off the main attack if it comes.”
It came, all right. There wasn’t any pretending about that. One Japanese
scooted out and cut the rope that held the drawbridge, and down she
dropped. Then two more put their heads down low so we couldn’t get a
good pelt at them and ran as fast as they could across to the hotel.
They were gone about three minutes when we saw them coming back with a
ladder—with two ladders. One was a long ladder, the other was short. We
made it as pleasant and sociable for them as possible, but they dashed
under cover in spite of all we could do.
“L-l-lances ready,” says Mark. Then he raised his voice and yelled to
Plunk and Binney. “Keep your eyes open, guards.”
I leaned over the railing and out came three Japanese with the ladders,
and what do you think they had on to protect them from shots from above?
Bushel baskets! Yes, sir, every one of them had a basket on his head.
They looked like some newfangled kind of mud-turtle.
“Look!” says I to Mark.
He looked and shook his head and grinned sort of admiring.
“I knew that Man Who Will Come was a s-s-smart one,” says he. “Couldn’t
have invented b-better armor. Slingshots ain’t any good now.”
“Might hit their fingers,” says I.
“Waste of time tryin’,” says he. “Lances are the thing. Don’t let ’em
p-plant their ladders against the cliff. As soon as a man gets near with
a l-ladder give it a shove and topple it over.” He stopped a minute.
“Don’t see anythin’ of The Man or the other Jap, do you?”
“No,” says I.
“Well,” says he, “we’ll have to trust to the guards.”
The men were raising their ladders. The shorter one got in reach first
and Mark gave it a shove that sent it and the man who had it over on to
the ground with a good sound flop. That didn’t stop the two with the big
ladder. They used different tactics. Off they got a ways and then
pointed the ladder at the railing like a battering-ram, and came on with
a run. We had as much chance of stopping it as a hippopotamus has of
climbing a cherry-tree.
Bang! went the ladder against the railing, and as soon as it struck the
men jumped on it to hold it down. We pushed and pried, but it only
wabbled. It was too heavy for us.
“S-sideways,” says Mark. “Shove sideways.”
That was a real idea. We both got on one side and pushed. The ladder
moved a foot. By now the first man was half-way up.
“Shove hard!” says Mark. “_Now!_”
All three of us put our weight against it and it started, slow at first,
but gradually getting faster, until it went with a swoop. The top man
jumped all sprawled out and rolled over a couple of times when he
struck.
“Whoop!” says I.
Mark grinned, and so did Motu.
“Good!” says Motu. “That will stop them for one moment. It is like the
sieges of ancient strongholds in stories of my grandfather.”
They got up their ladders and tried again, but now we had the trick of
it and put them over easy.
“I wish,” says Mark, “I knew what The Man is d-d-doin’.”
“Restin’,” says I.
“Not him,” says Mark. “He’s got a scheme. This attack in f-front wasn’t
expected to win. He’d know better. It’s to cover up somethin’ m-more
serious.”
“Well,” says I, “all we can do is wait and ’tend to matters as they
come.”
“I ain’t so sure,” says Mark. “You f-f-fellows stay here. I want to go
back by the side.”
He went. Motu and I watched the Japanese drag the ladders under the
porch and listened to them jabber. Motu understood what they were saying
and grinned at me friendly and sort of proud.
“They say, ‘Boys be great warriors some day.’ Also they are saying, ‘We
have been told Americans cannot fight, and do not want to fight. We have
been told Japan with a little army could win from America with big army;
but if the men fight like the boys, it is not so.’ That is good to hear,
Tallow. I wish all Japanese could hear it. I wish it because all good
Japanese—all men who think—have a great friendship for the United
States. We do not like talk of war. We like to think only of peace
forever. But some there are who have hot heads—just as you have hotheads
in America. They see insults where there are no insults. They blame all
America for what one part of America does. It hurts Japanese pride to be
treated as we are by California—yet California has reasons. Thinking men
know that. So I wish all hotheads might know how great America is and
what fighting-men she raises.” Motu stopped a moment and raised his head
in a dignified kind of way. “Not,” says he, “that Japan fears good
warriors and would make war only on the weak. Russia was not weak, but
those who talk war most go to war least. A little fear would make them
cautious. So I wish all could know the warrior spirit that sleeps in
America, that they might never awake it.”
“Me, too,” says I. “If all Japanese were like you, Motu, I guess there
wouldn’t be any row at all.”
Motu smiled. “Not all have the advantage to see America and England and
the world that I have. They live at home and their vision is narrow.
They cannot understand. But some day I shall teach them.” He caught
himself suddenly and looked at me; then he went on as if he would make
me think he had said what he didn’t exactly mean: “Some day I will do
all a common boy can do to make them know. I will tell many friends.”
“Sure,” says I, but I wasn’t fooled. Right there I was convinced that
Motu was pretty important and powerful at home in Japan. You could tell
it by the way he spoke when he wasn’t thinking.
All of a sudden Plunk let out a yell.
“Hey!” says he. “Git away from there! Git! I’ll lam you good!” he says.
Motu and I ran around the corner and saw Plunk poking his lance at
somebody through the stairway. Just then Mark Tidd came out of the door,
rolling a big barrel that he’d found. He frowned at us.
“Your p-p-place is in front,” says he. “Git back there quick.”
He was right about it. We had left our station unguarded.
“What’s the matter?” I yelled at Plunk.
“Man tryin’ to cut the rope that holds up the stairs,” says he, “and I’m
pokin’ away his knife. He’s got it tied to a pole.”
Motu and I hurried around in front and got there just in time, for two
Japanese were trying to sneak up a ladder, quiet, without hearing. From
then on we didn’t have time to bother about Plunk and his troubles.