"Poor old Jones is on his beam-ends, groaning in his hammock, pretty bad with rheumatism or something like it. That day on the ledge in the rain was too much for him. You’re a pretty lucky chap to get ashore—the only midshipman of the whole crowd," he continued. "How did you manage it?" "Well," I said, rather sadly, for I had at one time been conceited enough to imagine that I’d been chosen for ability, "the Commander knows a cousin of mine, and she asked him to look after me." Mr. Collins smiled somewhat sarcastically. "If I hadn’t had an aunt who knew an admiral, who’d known Helston years ago, I shouldn’t have been here either." "He seems rather down on me now, though," I said. "Whenever I go near him he sends me away." "Can’t you guess why, you fool?" Mr. Collins asked, hammering down a big load of earth his men had brought him. "No; I thought I’d done something wrong." "Silly young ass! Why, he and the Captain are simply being potted at from those bushes beyond us, and he doesn’t want you to be bowled over. He won’t take cover either; he can’t, I suppose, while the Captain struts about enjoying himself. It may be jolly plucky, and Hunter is as grand a man as ever lived, and I’d follow him, and we’d all follow him anywhere, but he’s simply playing the fool." "Oh!" was the only thing I could say. We were interrupted by one of the Maxim gun’s crew pointing down the slope of the hill just beyond the line of smoking bushes. "Beg pardon, sir, but I think there’s a heap of natives down among them there bushes." "Go back and tell the Captain, Glover," Mr. Collins told me, stepping inside the redoubt and calling his men back to the Maxim. "Go quietly." I had hardly left him before the most frightful yells came from below and from Bush Hill; out from the cloud of smoke burst hundreds and hundreds of screaming Chinamen, and from Bush Hill a most awful fire was opened. I could hear the rattling of a Maxim, and a fearful hail-storm of bullets swept across the level top of the hill. I had never heard anything like this before, and bent down and ran. *CHAPTER XXII* *The Final Attack on the Hill* We Defend the Gun—Hunter to the Rescue—Hopkins Again—A Confession—Hopkins’s Will—Hopkins Makes a Request—Back to the "Laird"—Helston Acts—I am Sent Below _Mr. Midshipman Glover’s Narrative continued_ As I ran I heard both our Maxims pumping out lead with their horrid noises, and Mr. Saunderson’s voice steadying his marines as they fired point-blank down the hill. Sergeant Haig’s men slewed round to their left and fired sideways into the howling mob, and Captain Williams behind me was trying to stop the Chinamen’s Maxim. The noise was awful—the noise of Martinis, Mausers, Maxims, and the screaming Chinese.