One move he had not anticipated became apparent soon enough. The instant their boats touched, as the Caribs rushed at them with their mahogany pikes, the Spaniards who were not armed with sledges and axes did their best to seize the pikes and wrest them from the Caribs. In this, here and there, they were successful, and always in the corner where this occurred, the tide began to turn. It was one thing to prod and beat a Spaniard; quite another to be prodden and beaten by him. In the meantime, keen oars flashed here and there. There came the disheartening chop-chop of axes and the thud of sledges that told that at any moment the boom might be broken, the battle lost.
Heroic work was going on at every point. Outnumbered almost two to one, the Caribs fought valiantly. With their wild shouts forever on their lips, they seized fresh pikes when one was lost and fought with renewed vigor.
Tivoli, their chief, seemed everywhere at once. His great strength served him well. Here, where a sledge was battering dangerously at a chain, he made a mighty thrust, swinging his pike sidewise at a Spaniard’s head. The sledge splashed into the water. Danger at this point was at an end. Here an axe swung in air to meet with Tivoli’s well aimed pike and go spinning through air to join the sledge.
But for all this, the battle was going badly. Here and there a chain was badly battered and in several places a log of the boom was half cut through. Seeing his men outnumbered where ten Spaniards crowded a single dugout, Pant, whose slight strength had lost him his pike at the very onset, seized a pike aimed at his head and, gripping hard, executed a flying pole vault right over the heads of the enemy and into the booming waters.
The result was all that could be hoped for. The Spaniard, who still clung to the pike, was dragged half out of the dugout, whereupon that unstable craft promptly capsized, pitching ten lusty attackers, axes, sledges and all, into the river.
Tivoli, too, lost his pike. Angered at this victory on the part of an enemy, he watched his chance and when the Spaniard swung his pike to one side, with bare hands and unarmed, Tivoli rushed at him and rained such blows on his head as drove him to drop his pike and leap into the river.