THE ATTACK AT LAST
In what I am going to tell there will be little of Marjorie for a while,
for sorely against her will we refused to rank her as a fighting man and
made her keep within shelter, though busy in many ways making ready for
the inevitable attack.
Nothing happened on the next day or the next to disturb our quiet and
the beauty of the weather. For all that was evident to the contrary we
might very well have been the sole inhabitants of that archipelago, the
sole children of those seas, with Marjorie for our queen.
We did not hope, however, nor indeed did we wish, that we had heard the
last of our enemies. There was a moment even when Lancelot considered
the feasibility of our making an attack upon Early Island in the hope of
rescuing some of the captives. But the plan was only suggested to be
dismissed. For every argument which told against their attempting to
make an attack upon us told with ten times greater force against our
making an attack upon them. They outnumbered us; they were perhaps
better armed. The odds were too heavily against us. But our hearts burnt
within us at the thought of the captives.
We had evidently come in for one of those spells of fine weather which
in those regions so often follow upon such a storm as had proved the
undoing of the Royal Christopher. If the conditions had been different
our lives would have been sufficiently enviable. Fair Island deserves
its name; we had summer, food and water; so far as material comfort
went, all was well with us.
But mere material comfort could not cheer us much. We were in peril
ourselves; we were yet more concerned for the peril of Captain Amber, of
whose fortunes and whose whereabouts we knew absolutely nothing. If he
failed to meet a ship he was to return to Early Island. What might not
be his fate? To diminish in some degree the chance of this catastrophe,
we resolved to erect some signal on the highest point of Fair Island, in
the hope that it would have the result of attracting his attention and
leading him to suppose that the whole of the ship's company were settled
down there.
There was no difficulty in the making of such a signal. We had a flag
with us in the boat, and all that it was necessary to do was to fix it
to the summit of one of the tall trees that crowned the hill which
sprang from the centre of Fair Island. In a few hours the flag was
flying gallantly enough from its primitive flag-staff, a sufficiently
conspicuous object even with a gentle breeze to serve, as we hoped, our
turn.
In the two days that followed upon the visit of the pirates we were busy
victualling the stockade and supplying it with water, looking to our
arms and ammunition, and, which was of first importance, in building a
strong fence, loopholed like the stockade. This fence or wall led down
to where our boat lay, and enabled us to protect it from any attempt of
the pirates to carry it off or to destroy it. In work of this kind the
eight-and-forty hours passed away as swiftly as if they had been but so
many minutes.
On the afternoon of the third day all our preparations were completed,
and I was convinced that within that stockade our scanty force could
keep the pirates at bay for a month of Sundays, so long as they did not
succeed in getting sufficiently close to employ fire as a means of
forcing an entrance. But though I felt cheered I noticed that there was
no corresponding cheerfulness in Lancelot's face. He never looked
despondent, but he looked dissatisfied.
I drew him aside and asked what troubled him.
'The moon troubles me,' he answered.
'The moon!' I said in astonishment.
'Yes,' he answered, 'the moon--or rather, the absence of the moon. Last
night was the moon's last night, and to-night we shall be in darkness
after sunset. It is under cover of that darkness that, some time or
another, to-night or another night, sooner or later, the pirates will
make an attempt to land. For you may be sure that they have not
forgotten us, and that they would be glad enough to pull down yonder
flag.'
I felt in my heart that what Lancelot said was true enough, but I tried
to put a bold face upon it.
'After all,' I said, 'the darkness will be as bad for them as it is for
us.'
'No,' Lancelot said; 'they can steer well enough by the stars. If I
thought that they could get round to the back of the island and fall
upon us that way, I should feel that we were in a very bad case indeed.
But of that I have no fear. There is no place for landing in that part,
and if there were they would find it hard enough to force their way
through the woods. No, no; they will come as they came before.'
I asked him what he thought was the best thing to do. He replied that
the only thing was to keep a very sharp look-out, and to fight hard if
it came to fighting, a pithy sentence, which seemed to me to sum up the
whole art of war--at least, so far as we were concerned who dwelt on
Fair Island. To make assurance doubly sure, however, Lancelot did during
the day place a man by the flag-staff, from which point, as the hill ran
up into a high peak, he would be able to sweep the sea in all
directions. With regard to the night, Lancelot showed me how fortunate
it was that he had brought the fireworks with us, as, at a pinch, in the
darkness, we could get a gleam of light for a minute by firing them.
I was getting so unstrung by all these alarms and watchings that I began
to wish that the pirates would come once for all that we might have done
with them. For I had confidence in our side and the certainty of its
winning which was scarcely logical, maybe, but which, after all, I think
is a great deal better than feeling suspicious of the strength of one's
own side or speculative as to the merits of one's own cause.
How often afterward, in other places and amid perils as great, or
indeed ten times greater, have I remembered that night with all its
agony of expectation!
The main part of our little garrison was ensconced in the stockade and
sleeping, or seeking to sleep, for every man of us knew well enough that
he needed to have all his energies when the struggle came, and that the
more rest he got beforehand the better the fighting trim he would be in
afterward.
We had sentinels posted at different points along that portion of the
coast where landing was possible, and though we had been grateful to it
before for being such an easy place to land upon, we could almost have
wished in our hearts now that it had been less easy of access.
In front of the stockade, but some considerable distance from it, and on
the sloping land that was nigh to the beach, we had thrown up a kind of
intrenchment, behind which we could kneel and fire, and under whose
cover we hoped to be able to make a good account of assailants. I was on
guard here at night, and I paced up and down in front of it thinking of
all the chances that had happened since I sailed in the Royal
Christopher; and I pleased myself by recalling every word that Marjorie
had said to me, or in thinking of all the words that I should like to
say to her.
Suddenly my thoughts were brought from heaven to earth by a sound as of
a splash in the water. It might have been but a sweep of a sea-bird's
wing as it stooped and wheeled in its flight over the sea, but it set my
pulses tingling and all my senses straining to hear more and to see
something.
The sea that lay so little away from me was all swallowed up in
darkness. I could see nothing to cause me alarm. The quiet of the night
seemed to breathe a deep peace that invited only to thoughts of sleep.
But I was as wide awake as a startled hare, and I listened with all my
ears and peered into the blackness. Was it my heated fancy, I asked
myself, or did I indeed hear faint sounds coming to me from where the
sea lay?
I whistled softly a note something like our English starling's--a signal
that had been agreed upon between Lancelot and me. In a very few seconds
he was at my side.
As I told him of my suspicions Lancelot peered into the darkness,
listening very carefully, and now both he and I felt certain that we
could hear sounds, indistinct but regular, coming from the sea.
'They are doing what I thought they would,' Lancelot whispered to me.
Lancelot's voice had this rare quality, that when he whispered every
syllable was as clear as if he were crying from the housetops. 'They
have chosen this dark night to attack us, and they are rowing with
muffled oars. We must do our best to give them a wild welcome. It is
well we have those fireworks; they will serve our turn now.'
He slipped away from my side and was swallowed up in the darkness. But
he soon came back to my side.
'All is ready,' he said.
He had been from man to man, and now every one was at his post. The bulk
of our little body crouched down behind the breastwork while four men
were stationed by the open gates of the stockade to allow us to make our
retreat there. Those who were behind the breastwork knew that when
Lancelot gave the word they were to fire in the direction of the sea.
Lancelot had his lights ready, and we waited anxiously for the flare.
The seconds seemed to lengthen out into centuries as we lay there,
listening to those sounds growing louder, though even at their loudest
they might very well have escaped notice if one were not watching for
them. At last they came to an end altogether, and we could just catch a
sound as of a succession of soft splashes in the water.
Lancelot whispered close to my ear: 'They are getting out in the shallow
water to draw their boats in. We shall have a look at them in an
instant.'
While I held my breath I was conscious that Lancelot was busy with his
flint and steel. His was a sure hand and a firm stroke. I could hear the
click as he struck stone and metal together; there was a gleam of fire
as the fuse caught, and then in another instant one of his fireworks
rose in a blaze of brightness. It only lasted for the space of a couple
of seconds, but in that space of time it showed us all that we had to
see and much more than we wished to see.
As our meteor soared in the air the space in front of us was lit with a
light as clear as the light of dawn, though in colour it was more like
that of the moon--at least, as I have seen her rays represented often
enough since in stage plays. Before us the sea rippled gently against
the sand, and in the shallows we saw the pirates as clearly as we had
seen them on the day when they first came to the island.
There were now three boatloads of them, and the boats were more fully
manned than before. Many of the men were still in the boats, but the
greater part were in the water, barelegged, and were stealthily urging
the boats ashore. They were doing the work quietly, and made little
noise. It was the strangest sight I had ever seen, this sight of those
men in their scarlet coats, that looked so glaring in that blue light,
with their gleaming weapons, all moving towards us with murder in their
minds.
In their amazement at the flame the pirates paused for an instant, and
in that instant Lancelot gave the order we itched for.
'Fire!'
Then the silence was shattered by the discharge of our pieces in a
steady volley. All the island rang with the report, and at that very
instant the rocket on its home curve faded and went out with a kind of
wink, and darkness swallowed us all up again.
But what darkness! The darkness had been still; now it was full of
noises. The echo of the report of our volley rang about us; from the
woods came clamour, the screaming and chattering of wakened birds, and
we could even hear the brushing of their wings as they flew from tree
to tree in their terror. But in front of us the sounds were the most
terrible of all; the splashing of bodies falling into the water, the
shrieks of wounded men, the howls and curses of the astonished and
infuriated enemy. We could not tell what hurt we had done, but it must
have been grave, for we had fired at close range, and we were all good
marksmen.
But we could not hope that we had crippled our invaders, or done much
toward equalising our forces. For, as it had seemed in that moment of
illumination, we were outnumbered by well-nigh two to one.
There was no need to fire another light; it was impossible that we could
hope to hold our own in the open, and our enemies would be upon us
before we had time to reload, so there was nothing for it but to retreat
to the stockade with all speed.
Lancelot gave the order, and in another instant we were racing for the
stockade, bending low as we ran, for the pirates had begun to fire in
our direction. But their firing was wild, and it hit none of us; and it
stopped as suddenly as it began, for they soon perceived that it was
idle waste of powder and ball in shooting into the darkness.
Luckily for us, we knew every inch of our territory by heart, and could
make our way well enough to the stockade in the gloom, while we could
hear the pirates behind splashing and stumbling as they landed.
But as they were taken aback by the suddenness of our assault and its
result, they were not eager to advance into the night, and, as I
guessed, waited awhile after landing from their boats.
As for us, we did not pause until we had passed, every one of us,
between the gates of our stockade, and heard them close behind us, and
the bar fall into its place. The first thing I saw in the dim light was
the face of Marjorie, fair in its pale patience. She had a pistol in her
hand, and I knew why she held it.