Here Wabberley cried out in terror that the savages were coming, and we saw several dusky forms appear in the distance. Hoggett, who was not without a certain courage, and coolness too, turned to the men and bade them post themselves behind the pigsties and fowlhouse, and let the savages have one shot to daunt them, but not more, from which I guessed they were very short of powder and shot. Almost in the same breath he continued his pleading with me, and I own he sickened me when he declared he repented of the wrong he had done, and if I would only let him in, like a "kind Christian gentleman," he would fetch and carry for me all the rest of his days. I think I might have yielded if he had not been so abject, which I did not need Billy's mockery to tell me was mere feigning; but I resolutely refused, and then we saw Hoggett in his true colours again, for the savages beginning to close round, he gave a glance at them and then poured out upon me the most horrible vituperation and foulest language I ever heard from the lips of any man, and then ran to join his comrades who were ensconced behind our outbuildings. [Sidenote: A Fight with Savages] The savages came on in a pretty compact body, brandishing spears and clubs, many of them having bows and arrows, and all looking exceeding fierce, their skins being tattooed in strange and hideous patterns, their hair bushed up like a thatch supported on what seemed to be a row of shark's teeth. There was much shouting and gesticulating among them, and from the manner of their pointing I guessed that they were mighty surprised at the sight of our hut and its surroundings, and indeed they came to a halt at some little distance from the moat, and seemed to be deliberating what course to follow; and all the time the seamen, who had regained something of their courage now that they were behind cover, closely watched them, but never offered to fire. The clamour of the savages increased to a wondrous degree, and I believed they must be working up their courage to charge, and presently the group widened out until it was near a half-circle in shape, and then the naked warriors, near two hundred in number, rushed forward with most furious whoops, their leader being a man of great stature and especial intricacy of tattooing. They had come within about eighty yards of the seamen when I heard Hoggett give the word to fire, and there were instantly several shots, but not so many shots as muskets, by which I saw that there was shortness of ammunition, as I suspected. The half-dozen shots, however, were enough to bring the savages to a pause, not because of any damage done among them, for the muskets of those days were not near so good as the rifles which I hear some of our men carried of late in Spain; but because of the noise and smoke, which are as terrifying to savage people as they are to animals. When the seamen had fired they began instantly to put in fresh charges, and the