When Christobal descended to the saloon he found Elsie holding the excited dog. It was instantly perceptible that she was not aware of the grave position of affairs on deck. She knew, of course, that the Alaculof menace had become active again, but the first attack had been beaten off so easily that she was sure this later effort would fail.

The dog was better informed. His alert ears told him that there were strange beings on board. He struggled so resolutely that Elsie freed him just as the Spaniard reached the foot of the stairs. Forgetting his wounded paw, and all a-quiver with the fine courage of his race, Joey galloped up the companion and disappeared. Elsie was much distressed by her four-footed friend’s useless pugnacity.

“I could not keep him back,” she said, “and I am afraid he runs some risk of being hit. Do you think he will go to the chart-house? That is so exposed—Captain Courtenay is not there, is he?”

“No. I left him a moment ago, close to the saloon entrance.”

She listened intently. Her imagination led her astray, it was so hopelessly on the wrong tack.

“There does not appear to be so much stone-throwing now, but I suppose I ought not to go on deck?” she cried.

“It is not to be thought of, Miss Maxwell. Indeed, the captain asked me to come and bear you company.”

“Just fancy those horrid Indians venturing to approach the ship to-night after the dreadful lesson they received this afternoon! And what will poor SeÑor Suarez say? He was so positive that they would never come near us after dark.”

“I saw him, also, on the promenade deck,” answered Christobal quietly. “He had very much the semblance of a false prophet.”

The Spaniard meant to meet grim fate with a jest on his lips. He had seen Suarez lying dead or insensible close to the rails. In fact, the unlucky Argentine was only separated by the thickness of the ship’s deck from the table near which Elsie was standing. Unless he were speedily rescued he would bleed to death.

“Ah, I heard Joey barking. He has gone aft,” cried Elsie. “And what is that?” she added, moving suddenly towards the center of the saloon. She had caught the fierce hiss of steam, and she was well aware that steam would only be brought into use if the Indians were endeavoring to climb the ship’s sides: not yet had it occurred that they could possibly be on board.

“Some of our friends the enemy have come near enough to be scalded,” said the man, coolly. “That should soon drive them away. You are not frightened, I hope?”

“Not a bit. My only regret is that I am not permitted to help in the defense. It must be irksome for you, Dr. Christobal, to be stationed here when the ship is in danger. I am certain you would prefer to be up there with the others.”

“Thank you for saying that. I wish you were able to read all my thoughts as accurately.”

His right hand went to the pocket in which he had placed the revolver. The stock appeared to have a peculiar clamminess as his fingers closed around it. Though he was proud of the iron nerve which had won him repute in his profession, he almost prayed now that it might not fail him at the last. What a horror, to be compelled with his parting glance to see this bright and gracious woman crumple up on the deck!

“But I know you are a brave man,” she said with a confidant smile. “It demanded a higher courage to pass undaunted through the ordeal of the storm than to face these ill-armed Indians. Please don’t think I am a warlike person, but it makes my blood boil to find that there are wretches who regard our distress as their opportunity to murder us and pillage the ship. What have we done to them? If they are poor and hungry, and they would only come to us in a peaceful way, Captain Courtenay would give them all the stores he could spare.”

Christobal heard ominous sounds from the fore part of the vessel. The revolver shooting had ceased, for the convincing reason there were no more cartridges. Courtenay’s double barrelled gun was being fired as quickly as he could reload it, and the sharp snap of one of the rifles in the Indians’ possession was recognizable as coming from the poop, the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress on the fore deck. Tollemache, Frascuelo, and three Chileans were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with nearly a score of savages; the doctor could distinguish the cries of the combatants, the irregular stamping of boot-shod feet.

He wondered why the girl, with her acute senses, did not grasp the significance of the yells and trampling on the deck, until it occurred to him, with a quick pang, that she was listening for one voice alone; owing to her ignorance of the desperate nature of the conflict raging overhead she had ears for nothing further.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him. There was a gravity in his eyes, which startled her.

“Elsie,” he said, “you believe in the efficacy of prayer, don’t you? Well, then, pray now a little. I shall be glad to think, when this time of danger has passed, that we owed something to your invocation.”

It was in his mind that he must shoot her within a few seconds, and the immeasurable agony of the thought reflected itself in his face. He had no notion that she would give his words a more direct significance than he intended them to bear. But a strange, hoarse yell of triumph, the war-cry of an Alaculof leader who had hauled himself to the bridge and found it undefended, warned her in the same moment that all was not well with the defense.

She sprang towards the saloon stairs.

“Do you hear that?” she cried in a ringing voice. “There are Indians on board. Come! We must not stay here when our friends are fighting for their lives.”

Christobal knew that this active girl would readily outstrip him in a race to the deck. She was already several feet distant, but he must detain her, no matter what the cost; if she fell into the clutches of the ghouls then over-running the Kansas, she might not be killed, but only wounded, and her sufferings would be inconceivable ere the end came.

“You are wrong,” he shouted with convincing vehemence. “But, if you wish to see for yourself, at least allow me to go first.”

While he was speaking, he ran forward. She thought he meant what he said, and waited for him. Then he caught her right arm firmly in his left hand.

“Let us wait here a moment or two,” he breathed.

“No, no; I am going now. You shall not hold me back. You don’t understand. The man I love is up there, perhaps surrounded by savages. Let me go, I tell you! If he is dying I shall die by his side. Let me go! Would you have me strike you?” She turned on him like an angry goddess, and strove to wrest herself from his grip. At that instant Tollemache and Frascuelo, the only survivors of the deadly struggle forward, were driven back by a rush of Indians. They caught sight of others leaping down the bridge companion.

“To the saloon, Courtenay!” roared Tollemache, clearing a path for himself with an iron bar which he swung in both hands. Followed by Frascuelo, he jumped inside the saloon gangway. Four savages followed, two entering through the doorway behind him. One raised a hatchet-like implement, and would have brained the Englishman had not Christobal whipped out his revolver and shot him through the body, releasing the girl’s wrist in his flurry. The Indian pitched headlong down the stairs, falling limply at Elsie’s feet. She stooped over the terrifying figure and seized the man’s weapon. Her eyes shone with a strange light. She felt her arms tingle. A wonderful power seemed to flow through her body, like a gush of strong wine. She was assured that she, unaided, could beat down all the puny, despicable creatures who barred the path to her lover. She vaulted over the writhing form of the Alaculof, and made to climb the stairs, but Christobal, admirably cool, fired again and brought another Indian to his knees. The second Indian’s fall caused Frascuelo to trip; and the Chilean, locked rib to rib with a somewhat sturdy opponent, rolled into the saloon. Elsie drew back just in time, or the two men would have knocked her down. Even as they were turning over on the steep steps she saw Frascuelo’s knife seek that favorite junction of neck and collar-bone which Christobal had said was so well understood by those of his ilk. At the foot of the stairs the Indian lay still, and Frascuelo tried to rise. She helped him gladly. The awfulness of this killing no longer appalled her. Each dead or disabled Indian was one less obstacle between her and Courtenay. A third time the revolver barked, but Christobal missed. It did not matter greatly, as Tollemache had shortened his bar, using it twice as a miner delves at a rock. But the doctor did not forget that he had only three cartridges left, two of which were bespoke long before the fight began.

At last, then, the way was clear. Elsie would have mounted the stairs but an appealing hand detained her.

“I cannot walk, seÑorita. My leg has given way. And we can do no good there. They are all down.”

A death chill gripped her heart at Frascuelo’s words.

“All down!” she repeated, white-lipped.

“I think so,” said he, blankly. The man was dazed by the ordeal through which he had passed.

As if to answer and refute him, Joey’s hysterical yelp sounded from a point close at hand, and they distinctly heard Courtenay’s loud command:

“This way, Boyle! Rally to the bridge!”

“You are mistaken!” shrieked Elsie, wrenching herself free from the Chilean’s grasp. Nothing short of violence would stop her now. Tollemache darted out into the darkness, and she mounted the steps two at a time. Christobal panted by her side. He was determined not to be parted from her: if necessary, he would drag her away from any doubtful encounter on the battle-field of the deck. But his blood was aflame now with the lust of combat. He wished to die fighting rather than by a suicide’s bullet.

They were not yet clear of the doorway when an extraordinary burst of cheering and shouts in English and Spanish assailed their wondering ears. The sounds seemed to come from the sea, from some point very near to the ship. A loud hubbub arose among the Indians; Courtenay, clubbing his gun, rushed past, with the dog at his heels, and ran up the bridge companion. They could follow his progress as he raced towards the port side, and they heard his amazed cry:

“What boats are those?”

“Your own, captain,” came the answering yell, plainly audible above the din.

“That is Mr. Gray,” screamed Elsie, and she, too, ran towards the bridge, with the doctor close behind.

“Sink every canoe you can get alongside of, and knock those fellows on the head who are swimming,” roared Courtenay, who was so carried away by the fierceness of the fight from which he had just emerged that he would have given the same directions to the archangel Michael had that warrior-spirit come to his aid.

He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, he turned so suddenly when Elsie neared him.

“Ah, thank God you are safe!” he said, drawing her to him for an instant. “Stand there, dear heart!”

He placed her in the forward angle of the bridge rail, and leaned out over the side. She understood that she must not speak to him then, but a great joy overwhelmed her, and her eyes melted into tears.

Christobal, who had missed no word of Elsie’s frenzied protest in the saloon, nor failed to note the manner of Courtenay’s greeting, seemed to take the collapse of his own aspirations with the unmoved stoicism he had displayed in the face of danger.

“The ship’s boats—” he began, but the captain raised his gun and fired twice aft along the side of the vessel. Cries of pain and a good deal of splashing in the sea proved that he had expedited the departure of several Indians who were perched on the rails beyond the reach of Walker’s steam jet.

“The ship’s boats,” went on Christobal calmly, “have turned up in some mysterious manner, just in the nick of time. A few minutes more, and they would have been too late.”

“But where have they come from? Where can they have been all these days?” whispered Elsie, whose eyes were so dimmed that she perforce abandoned the effort to make out what was going on in the sea near the ship.

“My brain reels under the wildest guesses. At present we are chiefly concerned in the fact that they are here. Yet people say that the age of miracles has passed: obviously a foolish remark.”

Those who have been plucked from the precipice by a sleeve, as it were, are seldom able to concentrate their attention on the one thought which should apparently swamp all others. They either yield to the strain, and lapse into unconsciousness, or their minds become the arena of minor emotions, wherein trivialities play battledore and shuttlecock with the tremendous issues of the moment. When a more extended knowledge of all that had happened, joined to a nicer adjustment of the time-factor in events, enabled Elsie to realise the extraordinary deliverance from death which she had been vouchsafed that night, she began to appreciate the service which Christobal rendered her in discussing matters with such nonchalance.

Barely a minute had elapsed since they were in the throes of a struggle which promised to be the last act of a tragedy. The ship was then over-run by a horde of howling savages, maddened by the desperate resistance offered by the defenders, and ruthless as wolves in their lust for destruction. Now, the Kansas was clear of every bedaubed Alaculof, save the many who cumbered the decks, either dead or so seriously wounded that they could not move. These men were so near akin to animals, that this condition implied ultimate collapse save in a few instances of fractured skulls and broken limbs. From the final stage of a hopeless butchery the survivors of the ship’s company were suddenly transferred to a position of reasonable security. It was not that the arrival of the ship’s boats meant such an accession of fighting strength that the Alaculofs could not have made sure of victory. Gray and his companions were badly armed. The Indians remaining in the canoes could have pelted them to shreds in a few minutes. Even those on the ship had the power to resist any attempt by the newcomers to gain the decks. But the superstitious savages had already screwed themselves up to an act of unusual daring in delivering a night attack, and the appearance of boats filled with men of whose fighting qualities they had already such a lively experience quite demoralized them. They fled without attempting a counter assault. Just as negroes conjure up white demons, so did these nude Alaculofs regard with awe men who wore clothes. They were ready to kill and eat the strange beings of another race who, few in numbers and ill armed, wandered into their rock-pent fastness, but it was quite a different thing to face them in equal combat.

At last the sounds of conflict died away. The black waters closed over the dead; the last swimmer vanished into the silence. The spasmodic barking of the dog, the groaning of men lying on the decks and the shouts exchanged between Courtenay and Gray for the guidance of the boats, were the only remaining symbols of the fiercest crisis which had yet befallen the Kansas.

Elsie, wandering through a trance-like maze of vivid impressions, awoke with a start to the fact that Courtenay was giving directions for the lowering of the ship’s gangway, meanwhile receiving information as to the identity of the boats beneath.

“Mr. Malcolm is in charge of the jolly-boat,” Gray was saying. “Miss Baring and Mr. and Mrs. Somerville are with him. Miss Baring’s maid is dead. SeÑor Jerrera is in my boat, Number 2. We have been on White Horse Island all this time, but we have seen nothing of the other life-boat.”

That meant that two boats out of those which quitted the ship had arrived thus opportunely. SeÑor Jerrera was the Spanish mining engineer who had been hustled into one of the craft manned by the mutineers. And Isobel was actually sitting down there in the darkness a few feet away. How wonderful it all was! Elsie thought her heart would never cease its labored throbbing. Even yet her breath came in little gasps. How could the captain and Gray talk so coolly, as if some of the passengers and crew were returning on board the ship after an evening ashore? It was the bedizened savages who now assumed reality: the simple orders which dealt with the clearing of the falls and the lowering of a ladder became wildly fantastic.

And Christobal was saying:

“Well, Miss Maxwell, you and I can look forward to a busy night. The ship is littered with wounded men, and our newly arrived friends must be worn with fatigue.”

His smooth, even sentences helped to dispel the stupor of amazement which had made her dumb. And the first reasoned thought which came to her was that the Spanish doctor had treated her with the kindness of an indulgent parent, for Elsie was far too unselfish not to be alive to the unselfishness of others.

“How good you have been to me!” she murmured. “I can never repay you. I remember now that I said dreadful things to you in the saloon. But you did not know what it meant to me when I realized that Captain Courtenay might be falling even then beneath the blows of those merciless savages. I have not had a chance to tell you that he has asked me to be his wife, and I have consented. I love him more than all the world. And you, Dr. Christobal, you who knew my father and mother, who have grown-up daughters of your own, you will wish me happiness?”

It was not easy to bear when it came, although he had guessed the truth already. But he choked back the wrath and despair which surged up in him, and said with his stately courtesy:

“I do wish you well, Elsie. No man can hope more earnestly than I that you have made the better choice.”

Then he turned, with a certain abruptness which reminded her of the change in his manner she had noticed once or twice during recent days, and quitted the bridge. She sighed, and was sorry for him, knowing that he loved her.

Courtenay, who had been far too busy to pay heed to anything beyond the brief fight between the boats and the canoes, perceived now that the gangway was in position; lights were shining on both the upper and lower platforms.

He stretched out his hand, and drew Elsie to him.

“Are you alone, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Kiss me, then, and go to meet your friends. They will be aboard in less than a minute. Oh, Elsie, I thought I had seen the last of you.”

“Was it so bad as that?” she murmured, a great content soothing her heart and brain at her lover’s admission that he was thinking of her during the worst agony of the fray. He gave her a reassuring hug.

“You will never know how bad it was,” he said. “I cannot understand how we escaped. One moment it all looks like blind chance; the next I feel like going on my knees in thankfulness for the direct intervention of Providence. Those brutes ought to have mastered us a dozen times. I almost lost faith when I heard Tollemache shout that the saloon was in danger, but I could not leave the after deck, where four of us were keeping fifty in check. The least sign of yielding would have caused an overwhelming rush. Well, all’s well that ends well. And not a sailor living can squeeze his best girl and do his work at the same time. Off with you, or I shall never bring you on a voyage in my ship again.”

With her soul singing a canticle of joy she passed from the bridge to the lower deck. Mr. Boyle was waiting there, holding a lantern.

“Huh!” he growled, when he saw her, “p’raps you’ll believe what I tell you before your hair turns gray, if not sooner. Luck! Did any man ever have such luck as the skipper? Why, if he fell off Mong Blong he’d find a circus net rigged up to catch him.”

“I agree with you so fully, Mr. Boyle,” she whispered, “that I am going to marry him.”

“I guessed as much,” he answered. “At any rate I fancied it wouldn’t be for want of axing on his part.” He whirled off into a tempest of wrath because a sailor beneath had failed to keep a guide-rope taut. The occupants of the boats might have saved his life, but he would let them know that he was still chief officer for all that.

At last he stooped and gave his hand to some one who emerged from the darkness beneath.

“Glad to see you again, Miss Baring,” he said gruffly. “And you, Mrs. Somerville. And you, sir,” to the missionary. “We thought you’d gone under, an’ good folks are scarce enough as it is.”

It was a wan and broken-spirited Isobel whom Elsie led to her cabin, but notwithstanding her wretched state, her eyes quickly took in the orderly condition of the room.

“I left my clothes strewed all over the floor,” she said, with a nervousness which Elsie attributed to the hardships she had undergone. “Why did you trouble to pack them away?”

Then Elsie told her of her hunt for the poudriÈre, and was so obviously unconcerned about any incident other than the adventures they had both experienced since they parted, that Isobel questioned her no further. A bath and a change of clothing worked marvels. Though thin and weak for want of proper food, neither Isobel nor Mrs. Somerville had suffered in health from the exposure and short fare involved by life on the island. It was broad daylight ere they could be persuaded to retire to rest, there was so much to tell and to hear.

Meanwhile, the meeting between Tollemache and Gray was full of racial subtleties.

Tollemache, stepping forward to grasp Gray’s hand, felt it was incumbent on him to utter the first word.

“Had a pretty rotten time of it, I expect?” said he.

“Poisonous. And you?”

“Oh, fair. Beastly close squeak when you turned up.”

Gray became more explicit when Courtenay met him in the chart-room, where the table had to be cleared of debris before some glasses and a couple of bottles of champagne could be staged.

“When those blackguards cast off from the ship,” he said, “we scudded away in a sort of ocean mill-race which threatened to upset us at any moment. In fact, we gave up hope for a time, but, as the boat kept afloat, Mr. Malcolm and I managed to stir up the Chileans, and we got them to steady her with the oars. Some time before daybreak we ran into smooth water, and made out land on the port bow. In a few minutes we were ashore on a pebbly beach, in a place alive with seals. When the sun rose we found we were on a barren island, and, what was more, that one of the ship’s life-boats had been upset on a reef which we just missed, and had lost all her stores, though the men had scrambled into safety. With the aid of our boat, and helped by fine weather, we raised the life-boat, and recovered some of her fittings. The water-casks and tins of food were hauled up by a chap who could dive well. We have been on that lump of rock until today, when I finally persuaded the others that unless we made for the land which we could see in the dim distance the weather would break and our food give out. The trouble with the Chileans was that they were afraid of the natives hereabouts, and preferred to wait on the off chance of a ship showing up. At last they saw that Malcolm and I were right, but we missed the full run of the tide, and were some miles from the mainland, or whatever it is, when night fell. We pushed along cautiously, found the entrance to the cove we had made out before the light failed, and were about to lay to until dawn, when we saw a rocket and heard the fog-horn. That woke us up, you bet. The Chileans pulled like mad, but when we came near enough to discover that the ship was being attacked by Indians, I had a fearful job to get my heroes to butt in. That fellow Gomez is a brick. He orated like a politician, and finally they got a move on. From what I have seen since I came aboard, I guess you were hustling about that time?”

“Yes,” said Courtenay, filling a glass with wine as he heard Boyle’s step without. He handed the glass to the chief when he entered.

“How many?” he asked.

“Huh! We’ve slung fifty-three Indians an’ six of the crew overboard. There’s fourteen wounded natives an’ five of our men in the doctor’s hands. Two Alaculofs died of funk when they set eyes on the nigger who turned up in the life-boat. They thought—well, here’s chin chin to everybody. I’m thirsty.”