George Henty - The Lost Heir

"Have you got all the things in, Polly?" Simcoe asked the woman, as she crouched down by the door of the hut.

"Got all in," she said. "Why not go? Very bad wait here."

"Well, I think you are about right. At any rate, we will go and get on board and wait a spear's-throw off the shore for an hour or so. If Bill's Susan comes here and finds we have gone she is pretty safe to guess that we shall be on board the canoe and waiting for her. What do you say to that, Bill?"

"That suits me; nothing can be fairer. If she comes we can take her on board, if she doesn't I shall know that they have killed her, and I will jot it down against them and come back here some day before long and take it out of them. And you, Atkins?"

"I will go straight on board. Like enough it is all a false alarm, and I aint going to lose the brig and all that she has got on board till I am downright certain that they – "

He stopped suddenly, and the others leaped to their feet as a burst of savage yells broke out across the water.

"By Heavens, they are attacking the ship!" Simcoe cried; "they will be here in a moment. Come on, Polly! come on, Atkins! we have no choice now." Taking up his arms, he started to run. "Quick, quick!" he cried; "I can hear them."

They had gone but some thirty yards when a number of natives burst from the wood. Had they arrived a minute sooner at the hut none of its occupants would have lived to tell the tale, but the impatience of those in the canoes lying round the brig had caused the alarm to be given before they had placed themselves in readiness for a simultaneous rush on the hut. There was no further occasion for silence; a wild yell burst out as they caught sight of the flying figures, and a dozen spears flew through the air.

"Don't stop to fire!" Simcoe shouted; "we shall have to make a stand at the boat and shall want every barrel."

They were three-quarters of the way to the boat and the natives were still some twenty yards behind them. Suddenly Bill stumbled; then with a savage oath he turned and emptied both barrels of his fowling-piece into the natives, and the two leading men fell forward on their faces, and some shouts and yells told that some of the shots had taken effect on those behind.

"Are you wounded, Bill?" Simcoe asked.

"Yes, I am hit hard. Run on, man; I think I am done for."

"Nonsense!" Simcoe exclaimed. "Catch hold of my arm; I will help you along."

One native was in advance of the rest. He raised his arm to hurl his spear, but the native woman, who had all along been running behind Simcoe, threw herself forward, and the spear pierced her through the body. With an exclamation of fury Simcoe leveled his musket and shot the native through the head.

"Throw your arms round my neck, Bill; the poor girl is done for, curse them. Can you hold on?"

"Yes, I think so," he replied.

Simcoe was a very powerful man, and with his comrade on his back he ran on almost as swiftly as before.

"Now, Atkins, give them every barrel that you have got, then lift Bill into the boat, and I will keep them back. I am not going until I have paid some of them out for poor Polly."

Atkins fired his pistols, and with so steady an aim that each shot brought down a savage; then he lifted Bill from Simcoe's shoulders and laid him in the canoe.

"Get up the sail!" Simcoe shouted. "They will riddle us with spears if we paddle." He shot down four of the natives with his double-barreled pistols, and then clubbing his gun threw himself with a hoarse shout upon them. The loss of seven of their leaders had caused their followers to hesitate, and the fury of Simcoe's attack and the tremendous blows he dealt completed their discomfiture, and they turned and fled in dismay.

"Now is your time!" Atkins shouted; "I have cut the cord and got the sail up." Turning, Simcoe was in a moment knee-deep in the water; pushing the boat off, he threw himself into it.

"Lie down, man, lie down!" he shouted to Atkins. But the warning was too late; the moment Simcoe turned the natives had turned also, and as they reached the water's edge half a dozen spears were flung. Two of them struck Atkins full in the body, and with a cry he threw up his arms and fell over the side of the canoe. Then came several splashes in the water. Simcoe drew the pistols from his companion's belt, and, raising himself high enough to look over the stern, shot two of the savages who were wading out waist deep, and were but a few paces behind.

The sail was now doing its work, and the boat was beginning to glide through the water at a rate that even the best swimmers could not hope to emulate. As soon as he was out of reach of the spears Simcoe threw the boat up into the wind, reloaded his pistols and those of his comrade, and opened fire upon the group of natives clustered at the water's edge. Like most men of his class, he was a first-rate shot. Three of the natives fell and the rest fled. Then with a stroke of the paddle he put the boat before the wind again, and soon left the island far behind.

"This has been a pretty night's work," he muttered. "Poor little Polly killed! She gave her life to save me, and there is no doubt she did save me too, for that fellow's spear must have gone right through me. I am afraid that they have done for Bill too." He stooped over his comrade. The shaft of the spear had broken off, but the jagged piece with the head attached stuck out just over the hip. "I am afraid it is all up with him; however, I must take it out and bandage him as well as I can."

A groan burst from the wounded man as Simcoe with some effort drew the jagged spear from the wound. Then he took off his own shirt and tore some strips off it and tightly bandaged the wound.

"I can do nothing else until the morning," he said. "Well, Polly, I have paid them out for you. I have shot seven or eight and smashed the skulls of as many more. Of course they have done for those drunkards on board the brig. I did not hear a single pistol fired, and I expect that they knocked them on the head in their drunken sleep. The brutes! if they had had their senses about them we might have made a fair fight; though I expect that they would have been too many for us."

Just as daylight was breaking Bill opened his eyes.

"How do you feel, old man?"

"I am going, Simcoe. You stood by me like a man; I heard it all till Atkins laid me in the boat. Where is he?"

"He is gone, Bill. Instead of throwing himself down in the boat, as I shouted to him directly he got up the sail, he stood there watching, I suppose, until I was in. He got two spears in his body and fell overboard dead, I have no doubt."

"Look here, Sim!" The latter had to bend down his ear to listen. The words came faintly and slowly. "If you ever go back home again, you look up my brother. He is no more on the square than I was, but he is a clever fellow. He lives respectable – Rose Cottage, Pentonville Hill. Don't forget it. He goes by the name of Harrison. I wrote to him every two or three years, and got an answer about the same. Tell him how his brother Bill died, and how you carried him off when the blacks were yelling round. We were fond of each other, Tom and I. You keep the pearls, Sim; he don't want them. He is a top-sawyer in his way, he is, and has offered again and again that if I would come home he would set me up in any line I liked. I thought perhaps I should go home some day. Tom and I were great friends. I remember – " His eyelids drooped, his lips moved, and in another minute no sounds came from them. He gave one deep sigh, and then all was over.

"A good partner and a good chum," Simcoe muttered as he looked down into the man's face. "Well, well, I have lost a good many chums in the last ten years, but not one I missed as I shall miss Bill. It is hard, he and Polly going at the same time. There are not many fellows that I would have lain down to sleep with, with fifteen hundred pounds' or so worth of pearls in my belt, not out in these islands. But I never had any fear with him. Well, well," he went on, as he took the bag of pearls from his comrade's belt and placed it in his own, "There is a consolation everywhere, though we might have doubled and trebled this lot if we had stopped three months longer, which we should have done if Atkins had not brought that brig of his in. I can't think why he did it. He might have been sure that with that drunken lot of villains trouble would come of it sooner or later. He wasn't a bad fellow either, but too fond of liquor."