out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.”
The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the embers smothered among sand.
“Hawkins hasn’t had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to your post to eat it,” continued Captain Smollett. “Lively, now, my lad; you’ll want it before you’ve done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy to all hands.”
And while this was going on, the captain completed, in his own mind, the plan of the defence.
“Doctor, you will take the door,” he resumed. “See, and don’t expose yourself; keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you are the best shot — you and Gray will take this long north side, with the five loopholes; it’s there the danger is. If they can get up to it and fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty. Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand by to load and bear a hand.”
As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking and the resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets and coats were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the neck and rolled up to the shoulders; and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and anxiety.
An hour passed away.
“Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray, whistle for a wind.”
And just at that moment came the first news of the attack.
“If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am I to fire?”
“I told you so!” cried the captain.
“Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce with the same quiet civility.
Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyes — the musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his mouth very tight and a frown on his face.
So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several bullets struck the log-house, but not one entered; and as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket- barrel betrayed the presence of our foes.
“Did you hit your man?” asked the captain.
“No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.”
“Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett. “Load his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there were on your side, doctor?”
“I know precisely,” said Dr. Livesey. “Three shots were fired on this side. I saw the three flashes — two close together — one farther to the west.”
“Three!” repeated the captain. “And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?”
But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the north — seven by the squire’s computation, eight or nine according to Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold.
Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pyrates leaped from the woods on the north side and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits.
The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired again and yet again; three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure, two back on the outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly disappeared among the trees.
Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing inside our defences, while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though useless fire on the log-house.
The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building, shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the marksmen that not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the four pyrates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us.
The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle loophole.
“At ’em, all hands — all hands!” he roared in a voice of thunder.
At the same moment, another pyrate grasped Hunter’s musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor. Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the house, appeared suddenly in the doorway and fell with his cutlass on the doctor.
Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we who lay uncovered and could not return a blow.
The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistol-shots, and one loud groan rang in my ears.
“Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open! Cutlasses!” cried the captain.
I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash across the face.
“Round the house, lads! Round the house!” cried the captain; and even in the hurly-burly, I perceived a change in his voice.
Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with my cutlass raised, ran round the corner of the house. Next moment I was face to face with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head, flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, but as the blow still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon one side, and missing my foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down the slope.
When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us. One man, in a red night-cap, with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the top and thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been the interval that when I found my feet again all was in the same posture, the fellow with the red night-cap still half-way over, another still just showing his head above the top of the stockade. And yet, in this breath of time, the fight was over and the victory was ours.
Gray, following close behind me, had cut down the big boatswain ere he had time to recover
