This we did promptly, and the natives stopped and seemed as if about to fly, for our volley had done great execution.
"Now, then," said Rivers, "run for it before they recover themselves, but keep together."
As we started to run the natives hurled a shower of spears at us. One grazed Rivers' arm, making the blood come; another pierced the Lascar by my side to the heart, and the poor fellow fell dead; another went through the professor's solar topee, causing him to utter exclamations of rage and despair. But we pushed on as hard as we could go for the ship. The natives, we could see, hung behind us in a cloud, their numbers appearing to have been considerably augmented; they, however, took care to keep out of the range of our guns.
In an hour's time we regained the deck of the Serampore, the natives still following in the distance.
I rushed up to Mr. Urquhart, and in a few words explained to him what had occurred, whereupon he instantly ordered all hands to be called, and got our two nine-pounders aft loaded, and pointed towards the shore opposite the stern of the ship. The ladies behaved with wonderful coolness and courage when they heard that an attack might be expected from the natives, and offered their services as nurses or in any other way in which they might be useful.
In the meantime a great crowd of natives were assembling on the shore opposite the ship, at which their leaders were pointing and uttering wild cries of defiance. Their only means of approach was either by swimming, or by the irregular causeway that the rocks of the reef provided, and that would not admit of a large number walking abreast. After a brief pause, however, they made a forward movement, and with loud cries dashed, some through the water and some on the reef, with the evident idea of boarding the ship. Those who had matchlocks fired
