Even in that dreadful hour the seaman's faith in his physical invincibility, and in the terrible power of his fists, did not altogether fail. Although he wore a cutlass, and had used it that day with tremendous effect, he did not now draw it. He preferred to engage supernatural enemies with the weapons that nature had given him, and entered the cave on tiptoe with slow, cautious steps, his fists tightly clenched and ready for instant action, yet thrust into the pockets of his coatee in a deceptively peaceful way, as if he meant to take the ghosts by surprise.
Corrie followed him, also on tiptoe, with the broken saber in his right hand, and the cocked pistol in his left, his forefinger being on the trigger, and the muzzle pointing straight at the small of the seaman's back,—if one may be permitted to talk of such an enormous back having any "small" about it!
Poopy entered last, also on tiptoe, trembling violently, holding on with both hands to the waistband of Corrie's trousers, and only restrained from instant flight by her anxieties and her strong love for little Alice.
Thus, step by step, with bated breath and loudly beating hearts, pausing often to listen, and gasping in a subdued way at times, the three friends advanced from the gloom without into the thick darkness within, until their gliding forms were swallowed up.
Now it so happened that the shouts and yells to which we have more than once made reference in this chapter attracted a band of savages who had been put to flight by Henry Stuart's party. These rascals, not knowing what was the cause of so much noise up on the heights, and being much too well acquainted with the human voice in all its modifications to fancy that ghosts had anything to do with it, cautiously ascended towards the cavern, just a few minutes after the disappearance of John Bumpus and his companions.
Here they sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and, making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugarloaf, on the summit of which he placed her. So steep were the sides of this cone of lava, that it seemed to Alice that she was surrounded by precipices over which she must certainly tumble if she dared to move.
Here Keona left her, having first, however, said, in a low, stern voice:
"If you moves, you dies!"
The poor child was too much terrified to move, even had she dared; for she, too, had heard the unaccountable cries of Poopy, although, owing to distance and the wild nature of these cries, she had failed to recognize the voice. When, therefore, her jailer left her with this threat, she coiled herself up in the smallest possible space, and began to sob.
Meanwhile, Keona re-entered the cavern, with a diabolical grin on his sable countenance, which, although it savored more of evil than of any other quality, had in it, nevertheless, a strong dash of ferocious joviality, as if he were aware that he had got his enemies into a trap, and could amuse himself by playing with them as a cat does with a mouse.
Soon the savage began to step cautiously, partly because of the rugged nature of the ground and the thick darkness that surrounded him, and partly in order to avoid alarming the three adventurers who were advancing towards him from the other extremity of the cavern. In a few minutes he halted; for the footsteps and the whispering voices of his pursuers became distinctly audible to him, although all three did their best to make as little noise as possible.
"Wot a 'orrid place it is!" exclaimed Bumpus, in a hoarse, angry whisper, as he struck his shins violently, for at least the tenth time, against a ledge of rock. "I do b'lieve, boy, that there's nobody here, and that we'd as well 'bout ship and steer back the way we've comed; tho' it is a 'orrible coast for rocks and shoals."
To this, Corrie, not being in a talkative humor, made no reply.
"D'ye hear me, boy?" said Jo, aloud, for he was somewhat shaken again by the dead silence that followed the close of his remark.
"All right; I'm here;" said Corrie, meekly.
"Then why don't ye speak?" said Jo, tartly.
"I'd advise you not to speak so loud," retorted the boy.
"Is the dark 'un there?" inquired Bumpus.
"What d'ye say?"
"The dark 'un; the lump o' charcoal, you know."
"Oh! she's all safe," replied Corrie. "I only hope she won't haul the clothes right off my body; she grips at my waistband like a—"
Here he was cut short by Keona, who gave utterance to a low, dismal wail that caused the blood and marrow of all three to freeze up, and their hearts for a moment to leap into their throats and all but choke them.
"Poopy's gone," gasped Corrie, after a few seconds had elapsed.
There was no doubt of the fact; for besides the relief experienced by the boy, from the relaxing of her grip on his waistband, the moment the wail was heard, the sound of the girl's footsteps, as she flew back to the entrance of the cave was distinctly heard.
Keona waited a minute or two to ascertain the exact position of his enemies, then he repeated the wail, and swelled it gradually out into a fiendish yell that awoke all the echoes of the place. At the same time, guessing his aim as well as he could, he threw a spear and discharged a shower of stones at the spot where he supposed they stood.
There is no understanding the strange workings of the human mind! The very thing that most people would have expected to strike terror to the heart of Bumpus was that which infused courage into his soul. The frightful tones of the savage's voice in such a place did indeed almost prostrate the superstitious spirit of the seaman; but when he heard the spear whiz past within an inch of his ear, and received a large stone full on his chest, and several small ones on other parts of his person, that instant his strength returned to him, like that of Samson when the Philistines attempted to fall upon him. His curiously philosophical mind at once leaped to the conclusion that, although ghosts could yell, and look, and vanish, they could not throw spears or fling stones, and that, therefore, the man they were in search of was actually close beside them.
Acting on this belief, with immense subtlety Bumpus uttered a cry of feigned terror, and fled, followed by the panting Corrie, who uttered a scream of real terror at what he supposed must be the veritable ghost of the place.
But before he had run fifty yards, John Bumpus suddenly came to a dead halt, seized Corrie by the collar, dragged him down behind a rock, and laid his large hand upon his mouth, as being the shortest and easiest way of securing silence, without the trouble of explanation.
As he had anticipated, the soft tread of the savage was heard almost immediately after, as he passed on in full pursuit. He brushed close past the spot where Bumpus crouched, and received from that able-bodied seaman such a blow on the shoulder of his wounded arm as, had it been delivered in daylight, would have certainly smashed his shoulder-blade. As it was, it caused him to stagger, and sent him howling with pain to the mouth of the cavern, whither he was followed by the triumphant Jo, who now made sure of catching him.
But "there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." When Keona issued from the cave, he was received with a shout by the band of savages, who instantly recognized him as their friend by his voice. Poor Poopy was already in their hands, having been seized and gagged when she emerged before she had time to utter a cry. And now they stood in a semicircle, ready to receive all who might come forth into their arms, or on their spear-points, as the case might be.
Bumpus came out like an insane thunderbolt, and Corrie like a streak of lightning. Instantaneously the flash of the pistol, accompanied by its report and a deep growl from Bumpus, increased the resemblance to these meteorological phenomena, and three savages lay stunned upon the ground.
"This way, Corrie!" cried the excited seaman, leaping to a perpendicular rock, against which he placed his back, and raised his fists in a pugilistic attitude, "Keep one or two in play with your broken toothpick, an' I'll floor 'em one after another