The chief thing was to hinder these plunderers from reaching the plateau, for the garden and the poultry-yard would then have been at their mercy, and immense, perhaps irreparable mischief, would inevitably be the result, especially with regard to the corn-field.But as the invasion of the plateau could only be made by the left bank of the Mercy, it was sufficient to oppose the colpeos on the narrow bank between the river and the cliff of granite.
This was plain to all, and, by Cyrus Harding's orders, they reached the spot indicated by him, while the colpeos rushed fiercely through the gloom.
Harding, Gideon Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft and Neb posted themselves in impregnable line.Top, his formidable jaws open, preceded the colonists, and he was followed by Jup, armed with knotty cudgel, which he brandished like a club.
The night was extremely dark, it was only by the flashes from the revolvers as each person fired that they could see their assailants, who were at least a hundred in number, and whose eyes were glowing like hot coals.
"They must not pass!" shouted Pencroft.
"They shall not pass!" returned the engineer.
But if they did not pass it was not for want of having attempted it.
Those in the rear pushed on the foremost assailants, and it was an incessant struggle with revolvers and hatchets.Several colpeos already lay dead on the ground, but their number did not appear to diminish, and it might have been supposed that reinforcements were continually arriving over the bridge.
The colonists were soon obliged to fight at close quarters, not without receiving some wounds, though happily very slight ones.Herbert had, with a shot from his revolver, rescued Neb, on whose back a colpeo had sprung like a tiger cat.Top fought with actual fury, flying at the throats of the foxes and strangling them instantaneously.Jup wielded his weapon valiantly, and it was in vain that they endeavored to keep him in the rear.
Endowed doubtless with sight which enabled him to pierce the obscurity, he was always in the thick of the fight uttering from time to time--a sharp hissing sound, which was with him the sign of great rejoicing.
At one moment he advanced so far, that by the light from a revolver he was seen surrounded by five or six large colpeos, with whom he was coping with great coolness.
However, the struggle was ended at last, and victory was on the side of the settlers, but not until they had fought for two long hours! The first signs of the approach of day doubtless determined the retreat of their assailants, who scampered away towards the North, passing over the bridge, which Neb ran immediately to raise.When day had sufficiently lighted up the field of battle, the settlers counted as many as fifty dead bodies scattered about on the shore.
"And Jup!" cried Pencroft; "where is Jup?" Jup had disappeared.His friend Neb called him, and for the first time Jup did not reply to his friend's call.
Everyone set out in search of Jup, trembling lest he should be found among the slain; they cleared the place of the bodies which stained the snow with their blood.Jup was found in the midst of a heap of colpeos whose broken jaws and crushed bodies showed that they had to do with the terrible club of the intrepid animal.
Poor Jup still held in his hand the stump of his broken cudgel, but deprived of his weapon he had been overpowered by numbers, and his chest was covered with severe wounds.
"He is living," cried Neb, who was bending over him.
"And we will save him," replied the sailor."We will nurse him as if he was one of ourselves."It appeared as if Jup understood, for he leaned his head on Pencroft's shoulder as if to thank him.The sailor was wounded himself, but his wound was insignificant, as were those of his companions; for thanks to their firearms they had been almost always able to keep their assailants at a distance.it was therefore only the orang whose condition was serious.
Jup, carried by Neb and Pencroft, was placed in the lift, and only a slight moan now and then escaped his lips.He was gently drawn up to Granite House.There he was laid on a mattress taken from one of the beds, and his wounds were bathed with the greatest care.It did not appear that any vital part had been reached, but Jup was very weak from loss of blood, and a high fever soon set in after his wounds had been dressed.He was laid down, strict diet was imposed, "just like a real person," as Neb said, and they made him swallow several cups of a cooling drink, for which the ingredients were supplied from the vegetable medicine chest of Granite House.Jup was at first restless, but his breathing gradually became more regular, and he was left sleeping quietly.From time to time Top, walking on tip-toe, as one might say, came to visit his friend, and seemed to approve of all the care that had been taken of him.One of Jup's hands hung over the side of his bed, and Top licked it with a sympathizing air.
They employed the day in interring the dead, who were dragged to the forest of the Far West, and there buried deep.
This attack, which might have had such serious consequences, was a lesson to the settlers, who from this time never went to bed until one of their number had made sure that all the bridges were raised, and that no invasion was possible.
However, Jup, after having given them serious anxiety for several days, began to recover.His constitution brought him through, the fever gradually subsided, and Gideon Spilett, who was a bit of a doctor, pronounced him quite out of danger.On the 16th of August, Jup began to eat.Neb made him nice little sweet dishes, which the invalid devoured with great relish, for if he had a pet failing it was that of being somewhat of a gourmend, and Neb had never done anything to cure him of this fault.
