It was towards the middle of the winter season, that is, when we were just beginning to think of planting our yams, when, going up one morning to our watch-tower, a task we never once omitted, I spied a number of dark objects on the sea to westward, which I very soon discovered to be canoes filled with savages. They were approaching our island, and I thought at first they might pass us by as the fleet had done before; but as they drew nearer I observed that there was a ship's boat among them, or rather ahead of them, and with white men aboard, and when I had watched for a little while I could not doubt that the canoes were chasing the boat and were very near overhauling it. Indeed I saw them spread out as if to envelop it, but then there was a shot fired and I saw the smoke hover over the boat, and the canoes paused in their course, and the boat drew away from them, only, however, to be pursued again as soon as it was out of shot range. I counted ten canoes, and each held, as I reckoned, above twenty men; the white men, whom I had already guessed to be the seamen of the _Lovey Susan_, being no more than about fifteen or sixteen. Billy was not with me on the watch-tower, it being his turn to cook the dinner; but seeing that it would be an hour or maybe more before the boat and the canoes could reach the island, I made great haste back to our hut, and acquainted Billy with what I had seen. "I hope the savages will catch 'em," says he at once, but agreed with me that we must prepare ourselves to meet a greater danger than any that had yet fallen to our lot, for we could not doubt that so great a horde of savages would easily overcome our few countrymen if they landed, and then, if they found our hut, they would most likely turn their attack upon us. Indeed, it seemed to me that our only chance of safety lay in the annihilation of the seamen before they could leave the shore, for we did not suppose that the savages would come inland into the island of the burning mountain, unless they had great provocation or incitement to it. All that we could do was to let the pigs loose again, and take up the drawbridge from our moat, which latter, however, we did not do until we had been to the cliff to see whether the boat was indeed making for our island. When we got there we found the crew at that moment landing, in the desperate haste of men frantic with fear, and after we had seen the first of them scrambling up the cliffs where they were easiest to climb, we ran back to our hut very quickly, pulled up the drawbridge, and set up and barricadoed the door. We had seen that the first of the canoes was but a few yards from the shore, and from the fierce outcries and war-whoops of the savages we knew that they were resolved upon blood.