The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn Part 10

I found the patient not only awake but also in his right mind.

"Well, Billy, my boy, how are you by this time?" I demanded.

"I believe I'm better, thank you, Mr Blackburn," replied the boy; "but I feel very weak and--oh, goodness! isn't it hot?"

It was. I had just found time to become aware of the excessive heat and closeness of the atmosphere. The perspiration was simply streaming from every pore of my body, and I felt suffocating for want of sufficient air. All the doors and windows of the bungalow were wide open, but the atmosphere was absolutely stagnant, the naked flame of a newly ignited lamp burning without the faintest flicker.

One of our native domestics was now busying herself arranging the table in what we called the "dining-room", and in laying out the materials for a supper for me--for it now appeared that I had slept for nearly fourteen hours on end, and the good woman insisted that I must have a meal at once. While these preparations were in progress I went out and stood under the veranda to take a look at the weather.

The thunder-clap that had broken in upon my slumbers proved to be the prelude to a terrific electrical disturbance which was now in full action. The centre of the disturbance appeared to be almost immediately overhead, for flash after flash of lightning was striking all round the house, while the detonations of the thunder were continuous and so violent that I felt the floor literally tremble beneath my feet. But the lightning was not confined to discharges from the cloud overhead, it was darting earthward all round us, and practically at all distances from zenith to horizon; and so frequent were the discharges that the illumination from them was continuous, revealing a vault packed with enormous ma.s.ses of heavy, black, writhing cloud. I stood for perhaps five minutes fascinated by the spectacle of the vivid lightning-play; and then, just as the native woman came out to announce that my supper was ready, down came the rain in a perfect deluge; and in a moment the eaves of the house, the foliage of the trees, and the earth itself poured with soft, warm water. It was too good an opportunity to be wasted, so I hurried to my own room, threw off my clothes, seized a morsel of soap, and, das.h.i.+ng out to the midst of the downpour, treated myself to a most delightful and refres.h.i.+ng bath, as a preliminary to supper.

The rain continued for about half an hour, and then it ceased with that abruptness which seems so characteristic of the tropics. But it had scarcely come to an end when there arose a loud rustling of leaves among the trees in the garden and round about the house, a blast of hot wind poured in through the open doors and windows, violently slamming the former and causing the latter to rattle furiously; and I had barely time to rush and close them all when a terrific squall came roaring down upon the bungalow. This squall was only the precursor of several that followed each other at rapidly decreasing intervals until those intervals became so brief as to be no longer distinguishable, and the wind settled into a roaring gale from the westward that blew all night and did not break until close upon noon next day.

As luck would have it, I had chosen the eastern slope of the peak as the site upon which to erect the bungalow, consequently the structure was, to a very great extent, sheltered from the gale by the hill behind it; but, even so, the building quivered and shook under the stroke of the blasts. And my heart sank as I thought of the wreck, for I felt that she had not one chance in a thousand of weathering it out. She was on what was now the windward reef--as it had been when she struck upon it; the surf would pile up on the reef again, raising the level of the water by perhaps three or four feet, and in that case the poor old _Yorks.h.i.+re La.s.s_ would be washed off the coral into the lagoon, and would there sink. And with her would go all the material that I needed for the completion of the cutter.

Then there was the cutter herself, or at least as much of her as had thus far been put together. How would she stand the buffeting to which she was being subjected? I was hopeful, for she was at this time merely a skeleton, and a very imperfect skeleton at that; consequently there would not be much for the wind to take hold of; yet I was anxious too, for I feared lest the heavy rain might have displaced some of the keel blocks and so let the craft down and perhaps strained her out of shape.

So anxious, indeed, was I that I would have gone down to the cove at once, despite the fury of the wind, but the night was so pitch dark that I could have seen nothing; nor, single-handed, could I have done anything, whatever might have happened; so I was perforce obliged to defer my visit until daylight. But when daylight came I fought my way down to the cove, against the gale that was still blowing, and there found, to my inexpressible relief, that nothing had happened but what could be put right in an hour or two.

I was naturally most anxious to ascertain what, if anything had happened to the wreck, but it was not until nearly a week after the gale that Billy had progressed so far toward recovery that I was able to leave him entirely to the care of the natives. When, however, that moment arrived I took immediate advantage of it, starting for the scene of the wreck immediately after an early breakfast, and enjoining Billy not to be anxious should I be detained until the next day.

With a fair wind all the way the boat made short miles of the trip, and I reached the scene of the wreck fairly early in the afternoon; but at least an hour before my arrival my worst fears were realised, for where the wreck had once been there was now no sign of her. But I knew pretty well where to look for her, and, coasting along the inner edge of the reef, I ultimately came upon her within a few fathoms of the reef, sunk in six fathoms of water, and of course irrevocably lost to us. I thought, however, that possibly some useful wreckage might be floating about in the lagoon. I therefore worked the boat over to West Island beach, near to which I did indeed find a few planks and some small odds and ends that had broken adrift or floated off when the wreck went down, and these I formed into a small raft which I towed round to Eden on the following day.

But when I looked from the skeleton of the cutter to the small quant.i.ty of material available for her completion, my heart sank within me, and I felt utterly discouraged, for what I had was ridiculously inadequate.

It was not enough even to complete the sh.e.l.l of the craft; and where on earth was I to get more? There were, of course, thousands of trees on the group, and I had an axe with which to fell them; but when they were felled, how was I to convert them into plank and scantling? It was a problem which I puzzled over during the whole day succeeding my return to Eden, seeking in vain for a solution, until at last it seemed that we were really doomed to remain where we were until taken off by a s.h.i.+p, even though we should grow old while awaiting her arrival.

Such a conclusion would doubtless have been terribly discouraging to many people, but after the first shock its effect upon me was, on the contrary, so provocative that I resumed work upon the cutter with more resolution than ever, if that were possible, until, some six weeks later, I had used up all my available material, and my work was perforce brought to a standstill. But when this happened I had made such progress that the cutter was planked up to the gunwale with the first thickness of planking; and so thoroughly satisfied was I with my work that I was determined _nothing_ should prevent its completion, even though, to provide the necessary material, I should be compelled to pull down the bungalow and break up our sailing boat. Such forcible measures as those, however, demanded the most careful consideration before adoption.

Meanwhile the rank luxuriance of tropical plant-growth had already changed the fire-blackened areas of Apes' and West Islands to varying tints of delicate green, the several varieties of new vegetation seeming to find congenial conditions in the thick coat of ashes resulting from the fire. But I learned from Bowata, whose people had been maintaining a close watch upon both islands, that thus far no signs of animal life had been detected upon either of them, although the chief agreed with me that, whatever might be the case with Apes' Island, West Island--or at least the unburnt part of it--must be simply swarming with living creatures. And the conviction that this was so was causing him and his people so much uneasiness that a permanent watch had been established at the western end of Cliff Island, and the natives resident there, to the number of forty, had all been armed with bows and arrows, that they might be prepared to repel possible incursions of apes from that part of West Island, the channel at that point being but little wider than that which the apes were wont to swim when crossing from their own island.

The liability to incursions by the apes seemed to be the only source of anxiety on the part of Bowata and his people. In all other respects they appeared to be perfectly happy; for their wants were few, and so fertile was the soil of their own island that it amply supplied all those wants, with very little exertion on the part of the easy-going inhabitants. The trouble was that the products of their industry unfortunately appealed so strongly to the appet.i.te of the anthropoids that, to gratify it, the brutes were willing to swim a channel a mile wide. And the trouble was serious enough, in all conscience, for--as I gradually learned, in the course of frequent conversations with the chief--the apes not only destroyed far more than they ate, but, until my introduction of the bow and arrow as a weapon, they were only driven off with the utmost difficulty, and frequently with serious loss of life on the part of the savages. It was indeed to put an effectual end to those frequent raids upon their property that the natives, in desperation, had finally resorted to the drastic measure of setting fire to the island that harboured the monsters.

The longer I meditated upon the problem of how to meet the shortage of material for the completion of the cutter the more reluctant did I become to resort to so extreme a measure as the breaking up of the sailing boat, still more the bungalow, to supply the deficiency. In my perplexity I visited East Island, and here a possible way out of the difficulty was suggested to me by the discovery--as I then for the first time particularly noticed--that certain of the trees flouris.h.i.+ng on that island appeared to be if not actually cedars at least a species very nearly akin thereto. And if upon closer investigation this should prove to be the case, here was a supply of timber admirably suited to my requirements and ample beyond my utmost needs. It was a matter worthy of my most particular attention; and accordingly I selected a group of the supposed cedars, and forthwith proceeded to operate upon them. They were three in number, of just about the right size for my requirements, and they were within a quarter of a mile of the cove. I began my investigation by hacking off a good stout branch, stripping off its bark, and testing its working qualities. I found that the wood gave off the characteristic odour of cedar; that it was close-grained; that it was easily workable; and that it was, in short, everything I could possibly desire. I therefore started work in earnest by felling the tree that I had already attacked and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off its branches. This brought my day's work to a close, and I returned to Eden with a mind relieved of a heavy load of anxiety, for there was now no longer any need to contemplate the breaking up of either the boat or the bungalow.

True, I had found the wood I required; but what I needed was thin planks, not heavy balks of timber such as one might be able to hew out of a tree trunk with an axe; and how was I to obtain those planks? I considered the matter and suddenly remembered that cedar splits easily; I therefore determined to ascertain by actual experiment whether it would be possible to procure the planks I required by splitting the felled trunk. The experiment was on the whole successful; for although I wasted more timber than I antic.i.p.ated I nevertheless succeeded in securing several very fine planks that, when operated upon with the plane, could be reduced to the exact thickness required. Thus encouraged, I made an estimate of the quant.i.ty of planking required to complete the hull of the cutter, and then proceeded to fell as many trees as were needed to furnish that quant.i.ty.

It was while I was thus engaged that I one day received an urgent visit from Bowata and his son, who came in great distress to inform me that the watchers posted at the western extremity of Cliff Island, to guard against a surprise attack on the part of the apes believed to have retreated to West Island, had that morning reported that the anthropoids were recrossing the Middle Channel to Apes' Island; and that, from observation of the creatures' movements, it was strongly suspected that they meditated an attack in force upon Cliff Island and its inhabitants.

Bowata concluded his communication with an entreaty that I would lend my aid to repel the threatened attack. I at once acceded to this request, and, with the two natives aboard the sailing boat and their punt in tow, proceeded to Eden, where I collected all the arms and ammunition we possessed, and, taking Billy with me, made sail for Cliff Island.

As we approached the northern extremity of Apes' Island, from which point the brutes usually started on their swim across the channel to Cliff Island, my telescope revealed numerous apes cl.u.s.tered together upon the beach, while many others could be seen wending their way toward the same spot; but I could see none in the water, so concluded that the threatened raid had not yet started. I inquired of Bowata how many of his people were now armed with bows and arrows, and was gratified to learn that every male above the age of fifteen had been so armed. This meant that there were more than a hundred archers to defend the island; learning which I came to the conclusion that the best form of defence was attack, and made my plans accordingly.

Landing Bowata and his son to conduct the defence of their island, I took aboard the boat seven natives, who, the chief a.s.sured me, were among his most expert bowmen, and headed across the channel toward Apes'

Island, my plan being to cruise to and fro opposite the spot where the apes were mustering, and to pick off as many of the brutes as possible while pa.s.sing.

At this point the channel was only about a mile wide; ten minutes, therefore, sufficed us to accomplish the pa.s.sage and to round to at a distance of twenty yards from the beach, where some fifty or sixty of the gigantic brutes were now a.s.sembled, most of them squatting upon their haunches, as though awaiting a signal of some sort, while others were joining them at the rate of two or three per minute. As the boat approached, the monsters eyed her malignantly, while several rose to their feet as though preparing to repel an attack. This suited our purpose well, and as the boat, under Billy's skilful handling, rounding to into the wind, with her sails a-s.h.i.+ver, glided slowly past the spot where the apes were congregated, we each deliberately selected our target and, drawing our bows to the full length of our arrows, let fly with deadly effect. Every arrow went home, many of them finding the heart, and with screams of mingled pain and rage eight of the apes crashed to the ground, a few of them writhing convulsively in their death-agony but most of them dead. There was time for a second discharge before the boat drifted too far away, and three more of the brutes went down, while five of their comrades, screaming and bellowing with pain and rage, wrenched the arrows from their wounds, some of them in their blind fury turning upon and savagely attacking their fellows.

The manoeuvre was so successful that it was repeated with equally satisfactory results.

Thus far the unwounded apes appeared to take little or no notice of the havoc we were working among them; and I feel certain that none of them connected that havoc with the appearance of the boat upon the scene; but when the manoeuvre was repeated a third time, and still more of their number fell dead or wounded, it seemed at last to dawn upon their imperfect intelligence that the strange object with white sails, which glided to and fro upon the water opposite them, must be somehow a.s.sociated with the casualties occurring among their companions, and with yells of concentrated fury and eyes ablaze with deadly malice about a dozen of them shambled down the beach into the water, and, striking out, started to swim in pursuit of the boat.

Nothing could have better suited us than this senseless act of the great anthropoids, for, although they swam fast, the boat could easily out- distance them in the breeze then blowing, and I signed to Billy to edge away toward a wider part of the channel, so that when they should discover how impossible it was to overtake the boat they might have the farther to swim, should any of them escape us and attempt to make their way across to Cliff Island. But the precaution was unnecessary, for when they were in the water and swimming we could do as we would with them, and within a few minutes every ape that had started in pursuit of the boat was slain.

By this time, however, others had also taken to the water, there being now at least thirty of them swimming, some in pursuit of the boat while others headed directly across the channel toward Cliff Island. This necessitated an alteration of our plans, yet we still contrived to keep the boat between the apes and the island, crossing and recrossing in front of the brutes at a distance of five to ten yards, so that it was impossible for us to miss them. Thus the slaughter went on until my very soul revolted at such terrible destruction, for the brutes continued to come on by dozens and scores until there seemed to be no end of them. Most creatures would have had intelligence enough to recognise eventually that their persistence meant death to them and would have turned back, either discouraged or terrified, but the apes seemed to be incapable of either emotion and pressed resolutely on, so that their destruction became imperative if the natives of Cliff Island were not to be abandoned to their tender mercies. But that sort of thing could not go on for ever; the number of the brutes gradually decreased, and at the end of about three hours the last ape in sight succ.u.mbed to our attack, and it then appeared probable that we had exterminated the entire tribe of the dangerous and formidable creatures.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

ATTACKED BY CHINESE PIRATES.

The destruction of the apes accomplished, I returned with avidity to the task of felling the cedar trees on East Island and splitting the trunks into planks for the completion of the cutter--for I had by this time entirely abandoned the hope of rescue by a pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p.

It was about three weeks later that, emerging on a certain morning from my bedroom, and stepping out to the veranda to scan the offing, according to custom, before beginning the regular routine of the day, my gaze was instantly arrested by an object poised on the very verge of the horizon, some twelve miles distant. Showing up almost black against the vivid hues of the early morning eastern sky it was yet too small to be capable of identification by the una.s.sisted eye. I therefore darted back into the house, and procuring the telescope brought it to bear upon the stranger; and as I focused the image of that distant object in the lenses of the instrument I experienced a moment of most bitter disappointment. For when my gaze first fell upon that tiny speck the thought instantly leapt to my mind that at long last the moment of our deliverance had arrived; whereas a moment or two later my telescope revealed to me the disconcerting fact that the craft in sight, and heading straight for the group, was a Chinese junk!

It may be that certain of my readers will wonder why the approach of a Chinese junk to the group should cause me such acute disappointment, and they may perhaps ask the question: "Is not a Chinese junk as capable as any other vessel of rescuing s.h.i.+pwrecked people and conveying them back to civilisation?" To this question I would reply: "Yes, undoubtedly, under certain circ.u.mstances." But let me explain the proviso implied in that reply.

Had the boy Billy and I only been concerned I would have trusted ourselves aboard the junk; but--there was the treasure to be considered, and I was not altogether ignorant concerning the character and reputation of Chinese sailors. There may be, and probably are, Chinamen who are as honourable, upright, and honest as the average Englishman, but my experience, such as it has been, is that they are not to be found aboard a junk. The Chinese seaman is, as a rule, drawn from the lowest stratum of his people, and among such men the moral sense, if not absolutely lacking, is very nearly so. They are barbarian, and all their instincts are primitive. Honour and honesty are words that have no meaning for them; they are, before all things else, intensely acquisitive, and if they want a thing they will take it if they can, and woe betide the owner if he resists them. In a word, the Chinese seaman is by instinct a pirate, and a cruel, bloodthirsty one at that; hence my feeling of disappointment at the sight of that junk; for how could I hope that our treasure would remain inviolate if placed in the power of such men as I have endeavoured to describe? They would cut our throats without scruple in order to possess themselves of the contents of our chests, the very appearance of which was irresistibly suggestive of treasure. It took me not a moment to determine that, rather than expose ourselves to such possible risks, we would have nothing whatever to do with the junk if we could avoid it.

But could we? The junk was heading straight for the group, running before a light easterly breeze which would probably give her a speed of about three knots, and in the course of the next three hours she would be close enough to enable her crew to see the bungalow, the existence of which it was impossible to conceal, built as it was high up on the hill- side with a pa.s.sage through the reef immediately opposite it. Was it at all reasonable to suppose that _any_ craft would sail past the group without calling to investigate? There was, of course, the possibility that the junk in sight might be perfectly harmless, and that if she entered the lagoon it would be merely to satisfy curiosity and perhaps to obtain a little fruit or to replenish her stock of fresh water; and, if so, well and good. But if not--if her crew happened to be composed of such ruffians as I have endeavoured to picture, what then? Could I hope that they would be satisfied merely to come up to the bungalow, ask a few questions in pidgin English, and depart, leaving us unscathed? To suppose any such thing would be--to say the least of it--foolishness.

The probability was that they would attack us, sack the place, carrying away everything that took their fancy, including the treasure-chests, murder Billy and me, and burn down the house out of sheer love of destruction.

These reflections, which have taken me so long to record, flashed through my mind upon the instant following my recognition of the character of the stranger; and realisation of the danger that possibly threatened us naturally led up to the question: How was that danger to be averted? Could Billy and I alone hope to put up a successful defence against an attack by perhaps thirty or forty determined men? For, let Chinamen be what they may in other respects, they are not easily daunted by a sense of personal danger, especially if animated by the hope of plunder. Then in a moment there came to me the memory of Bowata and the natives of Cliff Island. They had been most profuse in their expressions of grat.i.tude for the help which we had afforded them from time to time, and had repeatedly declared their eagerness to find an opportunity to give practical demonstration of that grat.i.tude: here was their opportunity; and all that was needed was to make them aware of it.

I took another long look at the junk, and came to the conclusion that she could not reach the lagoon in much less than four hours, which would allow me time to make a single trip in the boat to Cliff Island, get into touch with Bowata, secure his a.s.sistance, and return to Eden with my dusky reinforcements. I decided to do so, and, without waiting for breakfast, at once started for the cove--and the boat.

The wind being fair, I made a quick run across to Cliff Island; and a swift-footed native boy soon brought Bowata down to the landing-place where we usually met. Explaining the circ.u.mstances to him, I found him, as I had quite antic.i.p.ated, more than ready to render me every possible a.s.sistance; and, departing to muster his men, he returned in a very short time with nineteen of his most reliable fighters--the boat's utmost capacity was twenty, in addition to myself, and the chief naturally elected to accompany and head his party. Those men, Bowata a.s.sured me, were the pick of the entire tribe, and I quite believed him, for, although small and slight compared with the average Englishman, they were lithe, wiry, active, and resolute-looking men, with an eager gleam in their eyes which seemed to suggest that the prospect of a fight was the reverse of distasteful to them. They were each armed with a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and a most formidable-looking war club, the head of which was thickly studded with bone spikes, and which promised to be terribly effective at close quarters--the latter being a quite recent addition to their armoury invented by Bowata's son, whose imagination had at last been stimulated by the persistent attacks of the apes.

The return pa.s.sage to Eden--half of which was a dead beat to windward, with the boat loaded to her utmost capacity--occupied so long a time that I was in a perfect fever of anxiety lest the junk should arrive before us; but upon rounding the south-east point of Cliff Island I was somewhat relieved to see that she had, so far, not entered the lagoon, nor did I see any sign of her during the remainder of the pa.s.sage; for, low down in the water as we were, the spray of the surf breaking upon the reef effectually veiled from our view everything outside.

There was still no sign of the junk when at length the boat entered the little cove that was our usual landing-place, and grounded on the beach.

Ten minutes later we surmounted the crest of the ridge, on the far side of which stood the bungalow, and I once more got a view of the open sea outside, over the curtain of everlasting spray that had obstructed my view from the boat. The junk was visible, clearly enough, hove-to at a distance of about a mile to windward of the reef; and I hurried to the house for the telescope, that I might obtain a nearer view of what was happening aboard her. Seizing the telescope I proceeded to the veranda, from which I brought the instrument to bear upon the craft.

I now saw that she had lowered a boat that, manned by a crew of five, was heading for the opening in the reef immediately opposite our island.

This boat I watched, keeping the telescope bearing upon her as she alternately topped and disappeared behind the long ridges of swell, until at length she pa.s.sed through the opening and entered the lagoon.

Once through the reef, she headed straight for Eden, and it looked as though the men in her contemplated landing on the beach at the foot of the slope upon which the bungalow was built; whereupon I thought it well to hoist the brigantine's ensign upon the flagstaff I had set up in front of the bungalow, as a hint to the intruders that the island was British territory, and that its inhabitants expected that territory to be respected.

The boat, approaching cautiously, at length reached a point about a quarter of a mile from the beach, when the crew lay upon their oars, while the man in the stern-sheets rose to his feet and proceeded to subject Eden, and as much of the rest of the group as was visible from his point of view, to a prolonged scrutiny, after which, at a sign from him, the oars again dipped in the water and, turning, the boat recrossed the lagoon and made her way back to the junk.

There was now a pause in the proceedings, during which, I conjectured, the man who had been in charge of the boat was making his report to his skipper. The pause, however, was not of long duration, for, as I continued to watch, signs of a sudden stir aboard the junk became perceptible, and a few minutes later I saw that her crew were lowering two more boats, much larger than the first, and that a considerable number of men--who, so far as it was possible to see at that distance, were all armed--were swarming down the junk's side into them. This seemed to indicate that my worst suspicions regarding the character of the vessel were only too well founded, and that a pretty stiff fight was in prospect for us. If this should be so it was time to see about making my dispositions for the conflict; I accordingly re-entered the house and, girding on my cutla.s.s, thrust a brace of fully loaded revolvers into my belt, seized my own pet rifle and, filling my jacket pockets with cartridges, sallied forth and, joining Bowata and his party, led them down to the beach.

This particular strip of beach, it should be explained, was quite unlike the other beaches of the group. The latter, composed of white coral sand, were continuous, smooth, unenc.u.mbered, averaged from thirty feet wide in some cases to as much as a hundred feet wide in others, and usually sloped steeply enough to enable our boat, with good way on her, to run herself high enough on them to permit us to land dry-footed. On the other hand, the beach toward which we were now heading was a strip of coral sand not more than a quarter of a mile long, perfectly smooth, but sloping so very gently that I much doubted whether the boats I had seen preparing to leave the junk could approach within fifty yards of the sh.o.r.e without grounding. But the circ.u.mstance most greatly in our favour was that this comparatively short length of beach, while inviting enough in appearance as a landing-place, was backed, on its sh.o.r.e side, by an outcrop of black rocks that offered splendid cover for a defending force while leaving attackers from the sea completely exposed. These peculiarities of the sh.o.r.e rendered it morally certain that the beach itself would be the actual battle-ground in the coming conflict; and it was with the view to its decision there that I made my final arrangements, and posted Bowata and his men. Having done this to my satisfaction I took my rifle and advanced to the open beach, where I seated myself upon a detached fragment of rock, and patiently awaited developments.

These proved to be somewhat slow in arriving; and the period of waiting was rendered all the more tedious from the fact that, low down on the beach as I now was, the continuous veil of spray flying over the reef effectually hid everything that might be happening to seaward; but at length, after waiting for fully an hour for something to happen, one of the Chinese boats appeared in the gap in the reef, closely followed by a second and a third. The two leading boats were largish craft, pulling eight oars each, and they appeared to be carrying some fourteen or sixteen men each, while the third was the much smaller craft that had already once entered the lagoon, the crew of which seemed now to be augmented by three or four extra men. Once clear of the pa.s.sage, they formed in line abreast, the smaller boat between the two big ones, while one man, doubtless the leader of the expedition, stood in the stern- sheets, directing the movements of his little flotilla from time to time by a wave of his hand.

The distance across the lagoon at this point, from the reef to the beach of Eden, was about a mile; the boats were therefore not long in traversing the distance. But I did not intend to allow our unwelcome visitors to land without a protest of some sort, and at the same time giving them something in the nature of a warning. I therefore waited until the boats had arrived within about two hundred yards of the beach, when, rising to my feet, I discharged my rifle, aiming to send the shot a few yards above the head of the leader, who was still standing in the stern-sheets of the smaller boat.

As though my rifle-shot had been a signal, the oarsmen of all three of the boats instantly ceased rowing, and a tremendous jabbering arose among them, which the leader silenced by raising his hand, at the same time shouting what I took to be a sharp command. The oarsmen dipped their starboard oars, sweeping the three boats broadside-on to the beach, and the next moment I was saluted by a shower of bullets and slugs from some twenty jingals. For an instant the air all about me seemed to be full of lead, but I was untouched; and, knowing that it would take them a minute or two to reload, I wheeled about and, crossing some half-dozen yards of open ground, took cover behind a convenient rock.

As I did so the boats again wheeled into line abreast and, with their crews excitedly jabbering and shouting to each other, dashed toward the beach at full speed, the leader drawing a most formidable-looking sword and waving it above his head, with shouts of encouragement to his men.

But, as I had foreseen, the boats advanced but a few lengths farther when the two bigger ones stopped dead, having grounded, and several of their occupants, unprepared for the sudden stoppage, toppled over backward, causing great confusion among their comrades. At this moment I whistled shrilly, whereupon Bowata and his merry men arose from behind their ambush among the rocks and, taking deliberate aim, poured into the boats a flight of arrows, every one of which must have told, so short was the range, and so great was the confusion that ensued among the Chinese. Meanwhile, the smaller boat, being of lighter draught, continued to come stem-on for the beach. I was covering her, with my rifle nicely resting in a notch of the rock in front of me, and as she came fair end-on I pressed the trigger, and the two foremost oarsmen collapsed on their oars, both of them evidently shot by the one bullet.

This naturally added to the confusion; but the leader, who appeared to exercise great influence over his men, soon restored order and, shouting a command to his followers, caused those in the grounded boats to leap overboard, where, with the water nearly up to their waists, they paused for a moment to discharge a second volley from their jingals; then, tossing their c.u.mbersome firearms back into the boats, they uttered a yell, drew their swords, and came charging helter-skelter through the water toward the beach.