The Filibusters, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

THE fight on the beach soon lost its concentration, broke up into a dozen scattered skirmishes, and flitted about here and there over the mounds and hollows of the Key. It was an affair of individuals, where strategy was of little use, and the element of pluck told enormously. The man who fought, and fought, and in the end got frightened of the mysterious shape which battled against him in the gloom, and turned and ran, gained fresh tremors in his flight, till terror loosened all his joints. The pursuer, on the other hand (though an instant before being much minded to try and escape), gained comfort from the flying heels in front, till a courage bristled up within his ribs that was reckless as a ghezi’s.

The heavy firing did not last for very long. The weapons were emptied, and few men found time to re-load. Only here and there a crack told of some man who had slipped a fresh cartridge into the breech of his rifle, or a sharper, whip-like noise as someone loosed a final shot left in a revolver. They were fighting with the butt and the cold iron, which never require other ammunition than hate and a lusty arm, and which in war have killed more men by twice than all the missiles which gunpowder has singed.

The moon stayed hid; the night was breezeless; the dark was thickened by the hanging smoke. We on the Clarindella’s bridge could barely trace the outline of the beach, and could make out nothing beyond it. Never did men stand a more tantalising watch. A furious battle was going on within gunshot of us, in the outcome of which it was very probable we were vitally interested. And yet we could see not one of its movements. We did not even know what men were engaged, or how many, or why they fought. We had our ears alone to report to us, and they only told scraps of the tale.

All footsteps were muffled by the sand; all the lesser noises were blotted by the distance. But we could hear the rasping clashes when men engaged with the steel, and the scraanch of the gunbutt landing home; and from these, and from the louder cries of pain and death, of hate and triumph, we had to make up all our news.

For a long time only one thing could we be certain of, and that was that the killing went on at a most murderous pace. But as to who were falling, we could form no accurate idea. At one period, from the multitude of the cries, it seemed as though the two parties were exterminating one another mutually. But the noises lessened as the men spread, and then by degrees rallying shouts came to us which told that one of the parties had taken to itself the upper hand.

Then the firing began to ring out again, in single cracks, as the men of the winning party took time and loaded, and shot down the others as they came up with them. This lasted as though a body of men were going systematically over all the Key, exterminating every living creature they came across; and then it dwindled and then stopped to the shrill call of a whistle.

The sound cut the black air like a knife, coming to us so clearly that one might have thought it started from the forecastle head. It was repeated quickly by two other whistles from other parts of the island; and then we began to hear the shouts of men as they hailed one another to find the way, and gradually converged upon the beach.

Up till then we three on the Clarindella’s upper bridge had listened almost in silence, drinking in the sounds, and giving what meaning to them we thought fit. But at that point Captain Evans gave us the advantage of his sharper trained hearing.

“Hark,” he said in a thick whisper, ” did you hear that noise just then from the little inlet on the starboard hand over yonder at the head of the bay? It was a boat being grounded; and listen, there’s another; and by gum, that’s a third.

They have been lying off the beach, I guess, with a boat-keeper in each, and now they’re going to take those chaps off. That’s what the whistles were for. Looks to me as if we Avere going to have our turn next. Well, I suppose they’ll give us gruel when they do set about it.

“There, did you catch that? Hear them stumbling over the thwarts. That’s all hands aboard. Oh Lord, yes, we’re going to get it now, and no blessed error.”

“If you please,” said the General, “we will argue that point. I think, captain, you may remember my troubling your mate yesterday to get me up a couple of cases from Number 2 hold? Well, one of those contained Marlin rifles which happen to be i8-shot repeaters, and the other was a box of suitable ammunition.”

“Now Mr. Birch and I are going to take each one side of the ship and make it extremely warm for anyone who attempts to board us uninvited. You have no accommodation ladder over the side, and if those gentry come in row-boats they’ve a twelve-foot climb before them up smooth iron plates before they can come to handgrips with us.”

“And you think you can keep them off?” inquired Evans.

“We shall try,” said the General calmly, ” and I hope we shall succeed. Of course, there is risk in such a defence, because whilst one party of them climb up, the rest, unless they are born fools, will cover the escalade with a rifle fire. But we shall take every advantage of the cover, and I hope that they will discover that they have had enough fighting for one night already, and will be content to sheer off. I say I hope this will take place, captain, because if they are the individuals I imagine them to be, this steamer contains a cargo which would be remarkably useful to them just now, and to get a clear title to it which could not be disputed in a government inquiry they would undoubtedly cut every throat on board.”

“There is a deal of simplicity in that, sir,” said the shipmaster. ” If you’ve got enough of those guns, wouldn’t it be a handsome idea to serve the spare ones out to the mates and the engineers and some of the crew, with a handful of cartridges apiece? They’ll be glad of the chance of a little sport, and if you tell them what it means if we don’t keep the ship to ourselves probably they’ll contrive to shoot pretty straight.”

“Nothing,” said the General, ” would suit me better. I may own to you, captain, that I have an intolerable dislike to being hanged within the next hour or so, as hanged I shall be if those good folks can lay hands on me. Perhaps, indeed, you would even go so far as to accept a weapon yourself?”

“Not one of yours, sir,” said the master. ” I never could hit a thing as small as a man ten yards off with a rifle. But I’ve a bird-gun do.wn in my room and some cartridges of svvanshot, and I fancy if they’re given room to scatter they’ll bring down more cold meat than your bullets will. I can just brown ‘em both sides nicely from the bridge here.”

“Better come under shelter, captain. There is no use in exposing oneself needlessly. And you would be in full view of everyone here.”

“That sir, is my affair,” said the master stiffly. “I guess my ticket can’t be meddled with now, whatever happens, and so