CHAPTER XXI

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.