CHAPTER XXI--THE DASH FOR THE ARK

Sergeant Dick was as much astonished as the trapped Indians themselves--so much so that he held his fire for some few moments after their fall through the floor.

Not so Amos or Mrs. Arnold, nor even old Alf.

The first two, Amos yelling exultantly like any redskin, pumped bullets thick and fast, automatic in either hand, into the huddle of feather-plumed, half-shaven heads bobbing about helplessly in the water-trap.

And the old squatter, quitting his lever, darted back to the trapdoor in the central passage, and, hurriedly unfastening it, lifted it and bent down over it, firing at the swimmers near him.

“Oh, oh!” wailed Muriel in deep distress and magnanimous pity. “It--it is a horrid butchery now. Oh, let them go--let them get clear, uncle, aunt, Amos!”

It was indeed nothing short of butchery, as she said. The Ogalcrees were caught in a terrible death-trap.

Forced to swim for their lives and with their firearms no longer of the slightest use, they were penned in under the house by the fenced-in piles. These, as has before been explained, were interlaced by cross braces all along the outside edge of the premises, so that the Indians were shut in by so many closed gates, as it were.

It was, of course, possible to scramble out through this open-work fencing, for had not Amos and his father got in that way? And the Ogalcrees on the outside fringe of the mob trapped inside were quick to start clambering out.

The rest made to follow, that is, the great majority, but some clung to the piles and cross-bracing under the middle of the house, and tried to shelter behind the beams from the deadly and merciless shooting of the defenders.

At such close range nearly every shot of the latter told, for they could coolly pick their targets and take steady aim. Moreover, the swimmers were all so tightly packed, a miss was almost impossible.

No wonder Muriel Arnold’s gentle nature revolted from the slaughter. Redskin after redskin, shot through the brain, would throw up his arms and slide, an inert mass, under water.

Her kinsfolk paid no heed to her outcry--her prayer for mercy to the trapped wretches--but continued their deadly shooting, sending another and yet another copper-colored foeman to the bottom.

Old Alf, at the trapdoor in the middle of the castle, was shooting almost as many as his son or wife were from the loops in the living-room inner wall, when--whiz! thud! A tomahawk shot past his face like a streak of silver light, missing it by little more than a hair’s breadth, the keen blade striking and sticking quivering in the door-frame of Aaron’s bedroom alongside him.

He whipped back, startled and just in time to escape being pierced to the brain by a knife, thrown with equally unerring skill at his head. The knife stuck, quivering like the tomahawk, in the frame of his own bedroom on the opposite side of the central passage.

Two of the trapped braves had swum to either side of him under the bedrooms, where they were sheltered from his son’s and wife’s fire. There, clinging to piles, and thus partially covered from his fire, they had shied the hatchet and knife at him with the skill born of continual practice.

The old man thought it advisable to slam down the trapdoor and shoot home the sunken bolts upon it.

Sergeant Dick had not fired another shot after the plunging of the invaders into the water; but he still stood by his loop in Aaron’s bedroom, ready to shoot if any of the trapped redmen showed any likelihood of scaling the living-room floor and attempting to continue the attack on the house. Muriel stood by him, gazing also through the loop and uttering groans of anguish, and clasping her hands in horror at the slaughter going on.

Then, all at once, Sergeant Dick woke from the trance that seemed to possess him, and he shouted:

“Arnold, put back the floor, quick, if you can, and let us attempt a dash-out to recover the ark before it is too late. There can only be a few Indians left on the verandah and the ark.”

“You’re right, sergeant. I was nigh forgettin’ about the ark. That’ll do, Kate--Amos. Get ready to rush out and seize the ark now.”

And the old man darted to the lever beside the ladder in the cupboard and dragged it back, straining upon it with all his strength. The trapdoor of the living-room rose slowly into place again, but the only way the old man had of securing it in position for the time being was by hooking a chain on to a ring on the lever, and so keeping this forced back. The bolts that fastened the floor in place could only be got at through little traps in the floor itself. All these bolts were connected by a chain which passed through an iron pipe in the thickness of the flooring to another lever in the cupboard.

As the floor of the living-room rose into place again, Amos and his mother hastily wrenched back the fastenings upon the door in the central passage.

Sergeant Dick was about to unfasten the door before him when Muriel exclaimed:

“No, no, don’t open this door. One’s sufficient, in case we have to retreat. We’ll go out the middle one.”

She and Dick thereupon joined Amos and his mother at the middle door, and as they got it open and were darting through on to the trembling floor of the living-room, old Alf stepped out of the cupboard and followed them.

Across the living-room, its floor shaking and vibrating in its insecure state under them, the five of them raced to the dismantled verandah and open front door.

The sergeant held the two women back for a moment while he put out his head and reconnoitered.

Some seven or eight Indians were at either end of the verandah, the majority of them dripping with water and more or less exhausted. More were clambering up all along the verandah front, and some four or five were clustered on the steps, while as many more were standing in the bow and stern of the ark, apparently making ready to cast off.

While the fight had been going on inside the house a nearly full moon had risen and was now bathing the lake and its distant shores with the most effulgent rays, lighting it up in an enchantingly lovely way.

Sergeant Dick was glad of that bright moon--although he had no eyes at the moment for the beauties of the landscape--for it showed him the positions of all his enemies. And he beheld outside the “dock,” or outer ring of palisading, a great number of canoes, filled with Indian warriors, as well as several great log-rafts. Some of the occupants of the canoes were engaged in trying to force the gate in the palisades, so as to admit the flotilla to the aid of their comrades in front of the castle.

The recapture of the ark, therefore, promised to be anything but an easy task. It looked as if the defenders had waited too long--lost too much time in slaughtering the wretches they had trapped by their drop-floor.

But Sergeant Dick and those with him were not the sort to be easily daunted, flushed with triumph as they were.

As the young police officer put his face out of the open door, some of the redmen on the verandah saw it, and, yelling in terror, immediately plunged off into the water.

Encouraged by this evident sign of demoralization and panic, Dick echoed their yells with a triumphant shout. And springing out on the verandah, a revolver in either hand, he banged away right and left as fast as he could pull trigger, hardly waiting to take aim.

His companions poured after him pell-mell, automatics also in either hand, and even Muriel seemed carried away by the battle-fever now and fired right and left as fast and well as any of the others.

The Ogalcrees upon the verandah howled in deadly fear, and one and all followed the example of the first three or four--tumbled helter-skelter into the water and swam away for the outer palisading. Those on the ark broke and fled, in equally abject dismay, round to the opposite side of the cabin, falling over one another in their wild scramble.

“Back to the central passage, Muriel, Mrs. Arnold, and you, too, Squatter, and hold the house still. Drop the trap-floor again. Amos, you and I will do to take the ark. Come on!”

Sergeant Dick tore across the verandah, closely followed by Amos Arnold, and jumped on to the bulwark of the scow and down into its bows.

The door of the cabin stood open. Both men were inside it, had slammed it to behind them, and were shooting the bolts upon it, before a shot could be fired at them by the Ogalcrees in the canoes and on the rafts outside the “dock,” much less before the terrified cravens who had fled round the cabin could pluck up courage and oppose them.

Muriel and her uncle and aunt had, in like manner, hastily retired within the “castle” again, run back to the security of the central passage, and closed the inner door there.

Then Muriel and her aunt “manned” the loops again, commanding the living-room as before, while old Alf rushed to the cupboard, to be ready to drop the trap-floor again if necessary.

A moment later, amid howls of baffled rage, the occupants of the rafts and canoes poured in their shot at the “castle.” But the bullets only imbedded themselves harmlessly in the thick logs.