"It is hopeless," mutters Cook to Phillips; but amid a shower of stones above the whooping of the savages, he turns with his back to the crowd, and shouts for the two small boats to cease firing and pull in for the marines. His caution came too late. His back is to his assailants. An arm reached out--a hand with a dagger; and the dagger rips quick as a flash under Cook's shoulder-blade. He fell without a groan, face in the water, and was hacked to pieces {205} before the eyes of his men. Four marines had already fallen. Phillips and Ledyard and the rest jumped into the sea and swam for their lives. The small boats were twenty yards out. Scarcely was Phillips in the nearest, when a wounded sailor, swimming for refuge, fainted and sank to the bottom. Though half stunned from a stone blow on his head and bleeding from a stab in the back, Phillips leaped to the rescue, dived to bottom, caught the exhausted sailor by the hair of the head and so snatched him into the boat. The dead and the arms of the fugitives had been deserted in the wild scramble for life. [Illustration: The Death of Cook.] Meanwhile the masts of the _Resolution_, guarded by {206} only six marines, were exposed to the warriors of the other village at the cocoanut grove. Protected by the guns of the two ships under the direction of Clerke, who now became commander, masts and men were got aboard by noon. At four that afternoon, Captain King rowed toward shore for Cook's body. He was met by the little leprous priest Koah, swimming halfway out. Though tears of sorrow were in Koah's treacherous red-rimmed eyes as he begged that Clerke and King might come ashore to parley. King judged it prudent to hold tightly on the priest's spear handle while the two embraced.