As the boat drew on for the shore, the crowd on the beach moved and spread and contracted and then became still, the spears all in one clump.
There were at least thirty of the boys of Karolin able to hurl a spear with the precision of a man, and when Aioma had sighted the schooner and given the alarm, Dick, who had been on the outer beach, had called them together. Taiepa, the son of Aioma, had distributed the spears and Aioma himself in a few rapid words had fired the hearts of the tribe.
The strangers must not be allowed to land. For a moment, but only a moment, he took the command of things from Dick’s hands. “They came before,” said Aioma, “when I was a young man, and the great Uta knowing them to be men full of evil would not allow them to land but drove them off, and yet again they came in a canoe bigger than the first (the Spanish ship), and they landed and fought with Uta and he killed them and burnt their great canoe—and yet again they have come and yet again we must fight. We are few, but Taori in himself is many.”
“They shall not land,” said Dick, “even if I face them alone.”
That was the temper of Karolin and it voiced itself as the boat drew closer to the beach in a cry that rang across the water, harsh and sudden, making the kanaka rowers pause and turn their heads.
“They mean fighting,” said Carlin, bending towards one of the rifles lying on the bottom boards.
“Leave that gun alone,” said Rantan.
