The Indians, however, did not make another immediate rush, but
opened a terrific fusillade upon the two open loops from the door
and side-window of the ark’s cabin. The craft swung broadside on to
the verandah; and the gang on the steps, grasping the dangling rope,
made this fast again.
Sergeant Dick and Mrs. Arnold blazed back fiercely with a brace of
pistols each, keeping well to the side of their loops, and so
escaping being shot down by the bullets that now occasionally came
winging their way in.
The voice of the Black Panther rang out, issuing an unintelligible
order.
Sharp upon it, the two doors of the ark, the one in the bow and the
other aft, were thrown open and out poured the Ogalcrees in two
dense crowds.
Yelling and whooping, the one in the bows came swarming on to the
verandah, led by the six dripping braves from the stairs, who
brandished their wet and useless rifles and now more serviceable
tomahawks.
Sergeant Dick and Aunt Kate concentrated the fire of their four
pistols upon this band--fired into it as fast as they could.
The foremost red men stumbled and dropped rapidly, tripping up or
otherwise incommoding those behind, several of whom fell over them.
But, bounding over the fallen, others dashed up to the loopholes,
and the sergeant and Aunt Kate had only just time to slam the
sliding covers over these, to prevent being shot in at and the
apertures taken.
Hastily the two defenders hooked the loop-covers, then ran to the
adjacent windows, which also commanded the verandah.
Quickly, but cautiously, opening the loops there, the pair fired out
again at an inward angle, towards one another, so as to sweep the
doorway once more with a cross fire.
But the angle at which they were both obliged to fire being greater
now, they could not hit the men attacking the door, only pot at
those farther back. The door was trembling and groaning under the
energetic onslaught being made upon it.
And then, all at once, a rifle-barrel was thrust in at Aunt Kate’s
loop, and the deadly muzzle spurted a jet of flame and smoke almost
into her cheek.
A second rifle was quickly beside the first. The brave old woman
managed to push both rifles aside and fire out and wound one of
their redskin owners. But she could not dislodge or thrust the
weapons back, nor close the loop cover altogether.
“To the inner room! Retreat to the middle passage, sergeant,” she
screamed. “They’ve got my loophole.”
She turned and ran for the nearest of the three doors behind her,
firing back as she did so at the loop she was thus forced to abandon
in order to distract the aim of the marksmen outside.
Two bullets followed her, but the shots only imbedded themselves on
either side of the inner door, through which she vanished the next
moment.
Sergeant Dick saw through his loop some half a dozen of the Indians
staggering up the landing steps from the ark, hugging between them a
stout spar--a spare mast-yard--with the evident intention of using
it as a battering-ram against the door.
He turned his two revolvers upon the gang and shot down three men.
Then the same number of rifles were thrust in at _his_ loop, and a
knife and a tomahawk came whizzing in, just missing his face.
Desperately he shot out, at the same time as he pushed the
rifle-barrels aside. All three of these discharged their deadly
contents in the same instant close past his head, the bullets
thudding into the logs of the roof.
One of the rifle-barrels was withdrawn--fell out again, as its owner
slid down with a rubbing, scraping noise and a deep groan, shot
through the shoulder by Dick. But the other two remained, and their
owners strove to work their muzzles round towards him.
“Come away! Run for the inner rooms, sergeant! We can hold them
there,” screamed Aunt Kate. “Quit, and leave ’em the loop!”
Seeing the futility of trying any longer to hold it, the police
officer reluctantly obeyed her, wheeling and darting, crouched, for
the door just behind him.
He fired back as _he_ ran and jumped from side to side, and the old
woman also covered his retreat by firing at his loop inside of the
one she herself had abandoned.
She had closed and locked and bolted the door inside which she had
fled, and was now at the door of the central passage, looking out
through a loop in it. Needless to say, she had closed and was
fastening this door also.
The reader, perhaps, may need reminding that there were three doors
in a line along the inner wall of the living-room of “Water
Castle”--all on the opposite side to the entrance. The middle one
led into the central passage or compartment, and the other two into
Aaron’s and the old couples’ bedrooms respectively, on either side
of it.
Several shots were fired in through the two captured loopholes at
Dick as he darted for the inner door, but, thanks to his own tactics
and Mrs. Arnold’s covering fire, he gained it untouched.
It had been left open for the convenience of passing quickly in the
defense of the house, if necessary, from one room to another--and,
in fact, all round this--and, darting within, he swung it to behind
him, then promptly locked and bolted it.
He was about to open the loop in it--for every door in the house was
provided with such, covered over with a little steel slide that
could be hooked to when shut--when Mrs. Arnold, Muriel, and Old Alf
appeared in the door beside him communicating with the central
passage.
“You are safe, sergeant? Oh, thank heaven!” cried Muriel.
As she spoke, Sergeant Dick saw behind her, inside the central
passage, Amos Arnold on hands and knees in the act of dropping a
trapdoor in the floor into its place.
The squatter and his son on being thrown into the water by the
capsizing of the canoe had contrived below the surface to throw off
the grasp of their coppery antagonists, and with sharpened wits,
and, strong swimmers as both were, they promptly struck away under
the water and rose beneath the verandah.
Under there they were safe, of course, from being seen by their foes
in the ark or on the platform; and, being unpursued by their late
captors, the natural idea occurred to both to slip inside the piles
and braces below the house itself and try and gain admission to this
through the trapdoor.
The darkness, of course, was also in their favor. Indeed, it was so
dark under the “Castle” that they both mistook each other for a foe
when they caught sight of one another crawling through the piles.
Recognizing each other in time, however, they then swam silently to
one of the canoes moored under the house and the trapdoor, and,
clambering into it, tried the trap. As they expected, it was fast,
and they were unable to force it; so, waiting for a lull in the
fighting over their heads, they knocked to let the inmates know of
their whereabouts.
“Sergeant, you’re a brick! The most dandy fighter and man I’ve ever
struck yet,” shouted the old squatter. “Let ’em break in, the
painted rips--the cutthroat varmints! They’ll get a reception they
don’t at all expect--one as ’ill rather cool their ardor and put a
damper on their spirits. Hee, hee, hee!”
“But we’ve got to pay ’em,” screamed his wife. “There are the other
three lads and the three girls to avenge if we can’t rescue ’em.”
“We’ll rescue ’em if they’re still alive, mother,” growled Amos.
“And if my brothers are not, the girls are sure to be.”
He disappeared inside the door of his parents’ bedroom, while they
went to the door leading into the living-room. Muriel stepped inside
the room where Dick was and crossed to his side as he threw open the
loop in the door before him and hurriedly proceeded to reload his
two automatics to their fullest capacity.
“You had better stand to one side, Mu--Miss Arnold,” he said, “so as
to be out of the way of any shots that may come through the door. It
will hardly keep shots out like the front one.”
“The door’s stouter than you think. It’s double, with a plate of
steel between the two sheathings,” she answered. “And the Ogalcrees
will get the biggest surprise of their lives when they burst in.”
Thunderous crashes were resounding through the house from the front
door, upon which the Indians were using the improvised battering-ram
with effect. A couple of their number at either of the captured
loops were firing into the castle, and the living-room was full of
smoke and the acrid fumes of burnt gunpowder.
More of the assailants were trying to force the shutters upon the
other front windows.
Crash! One of the hinges of the front door gave, and a long
triangular crack showed some of the Indians outside.
Crack, crack, crack, crack! spoke the rifles of the four defenders,
and the bullets, surging across the intervening room, rattled upon
the window shutters or flew out the widening gap of the door.
A scream of pain outside told that the sergeant’s shot, as usual,
had found its human billet. The Indians, using the spar--carrying it
by means of short ropes noosed round it--retreated until their
rearmost man was on the very edge of the verandah; then forward they
all rushed again and dashed the “ram” once more violently against
the door.
With another splintering, rending crash the second hinge was burst
from its hold, and the door rolled open, precipitating the foremost
of the ram-bearers inside the living-room.
Two of them were at once shot down by the sergeant and Amos, while
two more fell back, dropping their end of the log and clasping their
arms.
With a united yell of triumph the rest of the Ogalcrees came
swarming in, however, and charged across the room for the three
doors opposite. Out rang six revolvers as rapidly as such weapons
can speak, and as many ceaseless streams of fire flew at different
angles through the rushing ranks of the foe.
A man fell or staggered at every shot. Nevertheless, the intruders
were not to be checked by the hottest fire now, believing that
victory was within their grasp.
They poured into the room, jostling each other, crowding upon one
another until the apartment was nearly full and there were not half
a dozen warriors left outside.
The fast-speaking six revolvers, however, prevented the front ranks
from reaching the three doors within. And suddenly, as if by magic,
to the rattle of a bolt wrenched back, the whole floor of the
living-room _dropped like a trapdoor_, plunging all the surging,
tightly packed invaders, feet first, into the water below the
stronghold!