WAR WITH THE BLACKS
Wholly unprepared as we were for this attack, and with the only clubs we
had lying about in the grass, it seemed as if we should be overwhelmed
in a moment and killed where we stood. My fellows, however, were not
only marvellously quick to regain their weapons, but they also set up a
series of cries which alarmed the camp on the moment.
A score of fighters had been left in the settlement that morning, to
prepare the skins of animals recently taken, and to point some arrows
with what flints we had remaining. These now came running down the hill,
not with the bows and arrows, as I had hoped they might, but with their
usual weapons.
Before our reinforcements could arrive, the Blacks rushed in and killed
two of my workers as if they had been a pair of helpless worms. We were
in the midst of a mass of the black devils, about three to our one,
making terrible sounds of triumphant yelling and snarling. Fortunately
the chief was with us, and now his great crystal club retaliated on one
of the foremost enemies and cleared a space for a moment, while I
hurriedly pushed my fellows back to back in hollow-square order, and
tried to let them know we must move all we could toward our hill, as we
fought.
The Blacks were fiercely impetuous—mad to wipe us out. They dashed upon
us with total lack of order, and therefore we beat down many before they
killed one more of our number. Had my fellows not been used to obeying
what I ordered, I could not have kept them formed together for a moment.
It was only this condition of semi-order which saved us from total
annihilation, for our mad antagonists rushed the fray with most
inconsequent violence and force.
There was singular din of blows—clubs on flesh and clubs on clubs,—cries
of rage and agony and shouted words—both of Linkish and English. It was
a spectacle of wildest action, the quick, muscular Blacks, inconceivably
savage, dancing, leaping about and hurling themselves upon us, their
clubs fairly flaying the air, their faces fiendish with animal ferocity,
teeth revealed and eyes darting fire of hatred, while we were equally
wrought up, vicious and thirsty for blood, smashing them down, waging
war of defense and war of vindictive aggression.
They were winning, crowding us too near together, beating our outside
fighters to death and dragging them feet first into a melee of
descending clubs, when our mates descended on the rear of the ones
between ourselves and camp, and broke the cordon completely. They
screamed with hideous delight as they bowled over a dozen of the foe,
but over-confidence would have cost us every life—and the Lord only
knows what after results—had my comrades not understood and obeyed my
commands to fly, for we were still outnumbered by heavy odds. Pushing my
Red fellows, guiding and endeavouring to retire them in order, I
suddenly saw a club coming straight for my neck. I dodged, but got a
scrape along the scalp and a thud on the shoulder, when I drove home my
knife for the first time during the fight, and ripped it out from a
three-cornered wound. Then we darted through the battered-down opening
in the ring and ran as hard as we could drive for the camp.
Up the hill we surged with the Blacks swarming up behind us. We had
gained fifty yards, owing doubtless to our perfect familiarity with the
ground; nevertheless a pair of our wounded fell behind and were
overtaken and beaten to a pulp at once. Through the gate in our wall we
scrambled, and then I got my bow in hand at last and flew about
frantically, shouting and urging my fellows to arm themselves with the
others.
While only about twenty of us rushed back to the wall as archers, the
foremost Blacks, outstripping their comrades, bounded through the
opening, or over the wall, insane with the hoarded rage of former
defeats, and ignorant of what they should find. The chief had halted
just inside, with two of his mightiest fighters. They smashed down Link
after Link that attempted to rush the gate. Then we with the bows
arrived on the scene. The black demons in solid phalanx stormed the wall
and came climbing up over its top.
“Now! Now!” I cried, “Shoot the pigs!”
It made me thrill to see those powerful fellows making crescents of the
bows. My heart leaped exultantly to hear the twangs and to see the small
but deadly shower of arrows suddenly pierce the air and sink in the
scabbards of flesh. The very first flight toppled five of the creatures
endways.
“Shoot! Pigs!” I shouted again, for these two words my Links
comprehended.
More came running to join us with the bows. We spread out in something
of a line. The air became thick with the hurtling arrows. Some struck
the wall and some flew high, but we mowed down many a Black, dead or
wounded, till the fierce attacking devils were appalled to see us and to
see this mysterious work of slaughter.
They halted; the back-bone of their mad impulse was broken; they could
not endure to advance in the face of fatalities about them, much less to
carry the place, over the bodies of their fellows. Yet they were still
more than we in numbers, and had they known of and adopted the bloody
tactics which sacrifice many, in those heroic, irresistible charges by
which men win a fearful battle, they would still have swept us off the
hill to the forest beyond, for our meagre supply of arrows was nearly
exhausted already.
Below the wall they rallied. The fellow who was armed with the
gold-nugget club—which was dripping with gore—seemed to be in command.
He flourished his terrible weapon and fired the Blacks with courage
anew. They came for us, hot and eager to even up the score.
I saw the great ebon creature head their charge, and notching my last
remaining arrow on my bowstring, I waited for him, in great excitement.
They paid no attention to the gate, but crying out madly, swarmed up
over the wall again as if nothing on earth could check their career.
Those of my fighters who still had arrows shot with vengeance in every
vibrating muscle. The Black who led, presented a splendid target,
presently, though he was moving quickly. I let the shaft drive straight
for his breast, but he was leaping downward at the second it arrived,
and it struck him squarely in the top of the left shoulder, near the
neck and just inside the collar-bone. It seemed for a second as if it
had gone in half its length, but beyond stumbling forward a trifle when
he landed, the fellow appeared to have received no harm.
I heard a cry of despair go up from the Blacks when they saw their
leader struck, but I gave no heed to anything, so intent had I become on
watching this active creature. I was so absorbed, indeed, that before I
realised what was occurring, the fellow had bounded near enough to swing
his club to slay me where I stood. Half falling backward to escape, I
lost my footing. The club came swiftly through the air, my arm was
knocked aside and the nugget thumped ponderously on my ribs and bowled
me end over end.
It had all happened in a second. I was down and knew I was badly hurt
before I could have winked. I thought the furious Black would rush upon
me and batter in my head, for I could not have risen to save myself from
anything. But the savage creature fell dead in his tracks for my arrow
had found his heart and he had died even as he struck that powerful
blow. Had he not been fatally hit, his blow would have slain me
outright.
In the meantime, my fellows, having brought down three of the foe with
arrows, had grabbed up their clubs again to beat in the heads of the
Blacks who dared jump down in the field of death. Seeing their chief as
he sank, without so much as the flicker of a movement, the remaining
besiegers gave a yell of dismay and fled in a panic.
Our forces—savage and aggressive the moment the tables were
turned—became the hunters instead of the hunted. They descended upon the
flying Blacks, slaying all the wounded who hobbled in the rear of the
wild retreat and all whom they overtook before the jungle received its
defeated children back.