"I give in! I give in!" answered the boy. "Look out, Gerald; see what a swarm of dark wretches, all in earnest too, for they have sheaves of spears in the left hand, while the right hand is raised to do battle. Keep back, Ruth! you simpleton. You have certainly seen enough of these ugly monsters."
"Oh Miss Marget!" shrieked the girl, "they'll come in and eat us. Stone walls is nought to 'em. They're not Christian folks, they're spurrits! they 're skellingtons; I ken 'em by their bones. Oh! send them back to their graves, master!"
Within thirty yards of the rock, and immediately before it, were gathered crowds of fierce savages; their dark skins marked with a white substance like pipe-clay, in fantastic figures; most of them were painted to represent skeletons. And while, with wild and demoniac yells, they were leaping and whirling round with graceful agility, they poised their spears, ready to cast them as soon as a victim appeared in sight. There was a painful expression of surprise and vexation on every face; and Jack, usually so indulgent to his sister's foibles, could not help saying:
"Why, Jack, honey!" sobbed she, "what could I think, when I seed that big grinning black face glouring at me fra' t' middle on a bush, and none nigh hand me: and oh! honey, I'd setten out afore I said my prayers. What could I do but just skirl and run? and I did it."
"That you did, Ruth, and no mistake," said O'Brien. "But, after all, it's better to have our enemies before our face than at our back. Will I send an arrow among them, Arty?"
"Certainly not, Gerald," answered Arthur; "we may need all our arrows, and we had better not be the first to commence an aggression. If we had had plenty of powder and shot, I have no doubt we might have dispersed them without bloodshed; but I am loth to waste a single cartridge of our small store. What are they about now, Hugh?"
One tall savage had mounted a mass of rock about thirty yards from them; and now, with wonderful dexterity, he sent a spear whirling through the air directly through a small gap in the rock, about twenty feet from the ground. Most fortunately, Arthur had ordered the whole party to gather close to the entrance, and the weapon passed on one side of them, and falling upon a shell of water tilted it over.