e, deciding with the rapidity of thought that if by skill and
quickness of action they could evade those three simultaneous blows,
they need not trouble about anything more for the moment; for their
progress down the lane would simply be a continuous succession of
evasions of three blows aimed at them at the same moment. Their object,
therefore, was each to secure a bludgeon before receiving a disabling
blow; and this they contrived to do, their sudden spring taking the
Indians so completely by surprise that the weapons were wrenched out of
their hands without the slightest difficulty. Then, instead of
sprinting for their lives down the lane, by which course of action they
must have inevitably exposed themselves to the certainty of receiving a
sufficient number of violent blows to disable them, and in all
probability prevent them from reaching their goal, they placed
themselves back to back and, each facing his own particular line of
assailants, moved sideways along the length of the lane at ordinary
walking pace, contenting themselves with parrying with their bludgeons
the blows aimed at them, and not attempting to return those blows
excepting when some particular Indian happened to exhibit especial
vindictiveness, when, if opportunity offered, they retaliated with such
effect that before fifty yards of their course had been traversed at
least half a dozen Indians were down with cracked skulls. Now, it would
naturally be imagined that a multitude of savages, finding themselves
thus baulked of the vengeance to which they had been so eagerly looking
forward, would have with one accord broken their ranks and, rushing in
upon the two white men in overwhelming numbers, have slain them out of
hand. But they did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the cool,
calm courage of the prisoners, their audacity in daring to face such
enormously overwhelming odds, the gallant fight that they were putting
up, and the extraordinary skill with which they handled their bludgeons,
all seemed to appeal to some elementary sporting instinct that must have
been lurking dormant and unsuspected in the Mayubuna nature, exciting
their admiration to such an extent that several of the Indians who might
have struck an unfair blow actually forbore to do so, and presently they
even began to utter shouts of admiration when either of the white men
achieved a particularly brilliant passage of defence. In short, it
seemed gradually to dawn upon them t