CHAPTERXVII.
I had the morning watch, usually uneventful. I was standing on the quarter-deck and scanning the Grand Canal with the utmost care. We had been told the mode of attack employed by the revolutionists—not that they had always used the spar, for on one occasion the fifty insurgents had swum to the side of a vessel, swarmed upon its deck like rats, massacred the officers and crew, scuttled the hulk and departed. We were alert.
Suddenly I descried a ripple on the surface of the Grand Canal. It might have been caused by a sea monster, and I confess that at first I did not attach much importance to the moving object.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, it had approached so closely that I could detect the almost submerged heads of the swimmers ranged along both sides of the floating spar.
I hurried to the main deck, where the crew lay asleep, and awaking each man assigned him to his post.
Only the bravest were given positions in the small boats, because, unequal as appeared the struggle between the men in the water, armed only with short daggers, and the members of our crew, wielding heavy cutlasses in the bows of the small boats, there was a terrible feature about the fight to which I have not referred.
The Sargassons were born swimmers. They neverwent into the water without a weapon of some kind to defend themselves against sharks, and the Sargasson youth, with his double-edged knife, was more than able to cope with any one shark that might attack him. This savage monster of the sea, as is well known, turns belly upward before it seizes upon its prey. The mouth is located under the bottom of the jaw, and it cannot seize an object on the surface of the water without turning over. Taking advantage of this fact, the Sargasson swimmer waits until he sees the white belly of the shark in the water, when he dives resolutely and plunges the terrible knife into the vitals of his enemy. Of course, it occasionally happens that he miscalculates his distance, or the refraction of the water deceives him as to the exact location of the fish. In that case he pays the penalty of his miscalculation with his life. But the value of such experience with sharks makes the Sargasson a terrible enemy in the water.
By the time that the attacking party had arrived within twelve or fifteen hundred feet of our vessel the Kantoon had been awakened and relieved me of the command.
The boats were equipped, the paddles were in place, and the sailors with their cutlasses, crouching low in the narrow bows, were ready to do and die.
At the word of command our flotilla of sea-root canoes emerged in two divisions from behind the stern and bow of the Happy Shark. At a rapid rate our boats advanced toward the moving spar, which had now turned and was headed directly for our ship. The voice of the commander of the attacking party could be distinctly heard as he gave orders to his men.
The spar was brought to a halt, the insurgent chief evidently deciding to accept battle in the open water. The mysterious feature to me was the remarkable faculty that the men in the water had of keeping their bodies almost completely submerged. When at rest they all turned upontheir backs, merely exposing their nostrils, and one of their ears in order to hear the commands when given.
The bravery of our sailors could not be questioned. Under perfect discipline, the two divisions moved forward and simultaneously attacked the two lines of men on the sides of the spar. It seemed a matter of only a few seconds when each swimmer would be cut down and the contest ended. In fact, the fight seemed such an unequal one that I felt, though I dared not express, considerable sympathy for the misguided assailants.
My feelings were not shared by the Kantoon, who, the very moment that he saw the insurgents had decided to meet their adversaries in the middle of the Grand Canal, rather than at the vessel’s side, bestirred himself about the ship, distributing arms to those of us remaining on board.
He handed me a long and very sharp sword with the injunction that he hoped I would know how to use it, for the occasion would probably arise at once.
I was completely mystified, but did not ask an explanation. Nothing could have seemed more improbable than that any of the swimmers would survive the assault of our boats.
This only emphasizes my ignorance of the methods of Sargasson warfare.
Ten of the boats could now be seen rapidly approaching each side of the floating spar as it lay motionless in the dark water. The head of only one swimmer, probably the commander, was visible; but I knew that there were forty strong, athletic bodies ranged along the sides of that one piece of timber. The director of our attack had formed the boats in two lines, and the order was given for a simultaneous attack from both sides of the floating mast.
Had it not been that the field of my glass was sufficiently large to take in the entire scene, I probably would have failed to detect a sudden commotion in the watersurrounding the floating spar. The forty heads of the swimmers rose above the surface for a moment and then disappeared underneath the water.
This fact had a perceptible moral effect upon the men in the boats. They appeared to be seized with consternation. Several of the oarsmen ceased to paddle, and, without exception, the men with cutlasses rose up and craned their necks over the bows, apparently seeking some object in the dark water.
Our flotilla was in a state of utter confusion and demoralization. And well might its members be alarmed. The enemy was about to attack from under the water!
In another instant many of the canoes had been capsized and were filled with water. In less than a minute only two of our twenty boats were still afloat, and their occupants were paddling for life down the centre of the Grand Canal, in a direction apart from the ship.
In the water, a deadly hand-to-hand contest was in progress. A few of our men had effected lodgment on the floating spar, after the soft and tender bottoms of their boats had been ripped open by the diving Sargassons. But their respite from death was very short. They were set upon by the insurgents and slaughtered to a man.
The only members of our party left at the end of five minutes were the four men who had escaped in the two uninjured boats!
All the others had died, gallantly.
Through my glass I could see one poor fellow still clutching the spar in the agonies of death. He was ruthlessly stabbed, but it required the combined strength of two men of the enemy to disengage his arms from the spar.
Before we on board had recovered from the horror of this spectacle, the terrible steel-capped spar was under way, headed directly toward us.
Our defense had utterly failed!
Something must be done at once. It was impossibleto move the vessel. I recollected, during my imprisonment, to have slept upon a large rope fender. I sprang down the companionway, seized this in my arms, attached a cord to it and swung it over the side of the ship, about the point I expected the spar to strike.
Watching narrowly its approach, I shifted it so that the terrible blow of the spar was received directly in the centre of the coil of rope. Though the shock made the old ship quiver, no damage was done. The insurgent chief was very much nonplussed at the failure of the battering ram, and slowly withdrew the spar for a second attempt. The probability is that, had his full equipment of forty swimmers been behind that engine of assault, the fender would not have sufficed. But in the battle Hansko Yap had lost eleven men, for I was only able to count twenty-nine heads in the water.
Onward, again, came the plucky and determined enemy. They swam with greater force, and the blow produced far more of a shock than the previous one; but I was able to interpose the fender again, and this destroyed its damaging effects.
Quicker than I can recount it, however, members of the attacking party began to swarm on board the Happy Shark, over the bows and through the stern windows, fighting desperately, hand to hand. They appeared to have only one object of attack, and that was the Kantoon. By a preconcerted arrangement they formed in a hollow square in the middle of the deck, thus separating our sailors who were forward from those aft, and moved rapidly toward Fidette’s cabin.
At this moment the old Kantoon showed the stuff of which he was made. He sprang down from the quarterdeck, cutlass in hand, and slashed about him in a way that would have pleased the Three Musketeers. He cut down two men with his own hand before my eyes. One of these fellows, however, was not killed, and crawled along the deck until he reached a point wherehe could strike. He then literally hobbled the Kantoon by slashing him across the calves of his legs, and the brave old man, falling to the deck in a heap, was done to death in an instant.
The command of the ship then devolved upon me, but before I could have rallied the men we would have been defeated had not Fidette performed one of the most remarkable acts of heroism imaginable.