I shall be ready for a nap at four o'clock. At present I feel
particularly wide-awake."
He went to the cabin. They heard him unlock the door and enter. At
that instant a startling hail came from two sailors stationed on the
poop.
"Indianos!" they yelled.
The three men were on the spar deck a second later, straining their
eyes into the black vagueness of the water.
"Indianos!" shouted two other sailors on the forecastle, and from the
spar deck it seemed to be possible to distinguish several black objects
moving towards the ship.
"The siren, Boyle," cried Courtenay, striking a match. At once the
swelling note of the fog-horn smote the air and thundered away in
tremendous sound waves. Soon a hissing, fiery serpent ran up the port
wall of the chart-house, and a fine star rocket soared into the sky.
It illuminated a wide area of the bay, and revealed a number of crowded
canoes darting in on the ship from all sides. Courtenay grasped the
lines connected with the remaining mines and hauled for dear life.
Already the Indian rifle fire was crackling with vivid spurts of flame,
and stones and arrows were beginning to patter on the deck and bang
against the steel plates.
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