The defending force scrambled up the broken way, and before it reached the pass Long Tom was bellowing angrily behind them, and was answered by another gun which sounded equally loud and defiant. The hill shoulders, however, hid what was going on, and they could only hope that Captain Cathie would be able to hold his own and something more. Blair placed his men among the boulders overlooking the pass, and crept on along the ridge with Ha'o and Evans and Stuart, until they could look out over the long, easy sweep of the hill to the farther sea. Opposite the landing-place lay the two schooners, with boats plying rapidly between them and the shore. The landing had evidently been disputed. The village was in flames and brown figures were creeping cautiously up the hill. The beach was filling rapidly with men from the ships. "It will be a couple of hours before they get here," said Blair, and with instinctive foresight, in view of his greater work, "I wish we could get hold of those brown fellows. If they know that we're fighting their battle, it will pave our way with them later on." He put it to Ha'o, and eventually the latter slipped away down the hillside, none too eagerly, to endeavour to intercept the fugitives and bring them in, if it were possible. There was no difficulty in intercepting them. They were flying for their lives. Bringing them in, however, was quite another matter. They recognised Ha'o, by his speech, as from the other side of the island--hostile therefore, and not to be trusted; and it took all his diplomacy, through the veil of a different dialect, to persuade the first half-dozen to the venture. The sight of Blair, however, reassured them. They recognised him from his calls in the _Torch_, and presently they were off along the hills to bring in their fellows. Altogether about thirty terrified men and women came in. The women were sent on down the valley. The men lay down among the rocks with the defending party. Meanwhile the marauders had completed their landing and had begun their march, like the shadow of a black cloud creeping slowly up the hillside. Before them, urged on by blows from behind, crept two reluctant brown guides with ropes round their necks. There was no fear of the yellow men missing the pass. They toiled upward with stubborn determination, and wasted breath in voluble commination of the length of the way, when they could have employed it more usefully in compassing it. And there was no possible doubt of their intentions. Slaughter and plunder were written all over them, as plain to see as the nature of a hyæna in the cut of its slinking face.