Part 45 (1/2)

He swung the big gun round, as I could hear. As much as a minute pa.s.sed with no sound on sh.o.r.e. Then came another volley from the enemy. The two rifles replied again. There came another pattering of bullets from the enemy. Norris spat out an oath. The next moment Ray called to me, saying that Norris was wounded. Leaving the fore-sheet to the sailors, I scurried over to the gun, and we began to uncover Norris's wound.

”It's nothing bad, give them the gun first,” he said.

Carlos seized the carriage and began to train the gun while random shots continued from the enemy.

”Hold her right on the edge of the bank,” said Norris, his voice husky with the pain.

”Now,” said Carlos.

Rufe applied the fire.

”Boom!” The thunder echoed in the hills. From the sh.o.r.e came horrid yells, of pain or fright, but never another shot.

”We got them that time,” said Norris, with a sigh of satisfaction.

And now we turned to Norris's wound. The ball had pa.s.sed through the fleshy part of his shoulder, and was not deep. We soon had on a bandage.

After a good swig out of the water b.u.t.t, he declared he was ready for another fight. Though after one attempt to stand he was content to recline on the deck. But he insisted on our re-loading his gun.

The moon had set when we pa.s.sed out over the bar, between those two flanking lines of surf.

”There's a schooner!” called Robert, come from the wheel, where he had been relieved by Captain Marat.

To the east, the vessel showed, all sails set, scurrying away.

”The _Orion_!” cried Grant Norris. ”Give her that shot!” he commanded.

Again the gun boomed. But it was a clean miss. Of this I was glad, for there was no occasion for further bloodshed; though I would not have betrayed the thought to Grant Norris, suffering as he did from that shot of the blacks.

We got Norris down under the cabin light, and properly cleaned and dressed the wound. While we were busied thus, Captain Marat had brought the schooner about and set her bow toward the west. In an hour everything was s.h.i.+p-shape, and Norris propped comfortably on a mattress on deck, with the rest of our party squatted about him. Rufe was busy in his galley, for none having had any l.u.s.t for food at the proper supper time, and now the suspense having snapped, we had developed keen appet.i.tes.

”Dey ain't no use you-all tellin' me how yo' feels,” Rufe called to us.

”I jes' got dat same feelin' in _mah_ insides.”

The relief was general; all who were not chattering, were whistling or humming. And the sailors, forward, were mingling their voices in a negro melody. Even the monkey caught the infection, and scampered about like a playful child, times springing from shoulder to shoulder; and once he s.n.a.t.c.hed a biscuit from Rufe's galley and thrust it into my hand, to Ray's pretended disgust.

”I told you the monkey and Wayne are in cahoots,” he said.

But before we came to Jamaica, the animal had transferred his chief liking to Ray. None could long resist Ray.

The black boy never tired of roaming about the schooner, which to him was the wonder of wonders, never having so much as seen the picture of a s.h.i.+p, or anything calculated to give him overmuch yearning for the world without those rocky walls of that sink in the mountain. Julian, who had conversed much with the boy, told us that he could not understand the value of that gold on which we put so much store. To him it was nothing but so much dross that had given him so many lame backs with the delving for it.

Andy Hawkins sat there grimacing and jerking his shoulders, and telling such ears as would listen, of the bottles of soda water he would be drinking when he got to the shops. Strangely enough, strong drink had no charms for him, though he made no concealment of his slavery to the drug that had already marked him for an early grave.

”The last time I was in London,” he said, ”I put four bottles of 'Utchinson's Sarsaprilla sody-water down be'ind my collar; and if Hi 'ad them now, Hi think Hi'd be able to put down a heven dozen.”

”You believe in getting full even if you don't get drunk, don't you?”

said Ray.

They were uneventful days, those of the voyage back to Kingston, in the Island of Jamaica. It was before noon of the twenty-fifth of September that we let go the anchor in the harbor.