, and we keep 'em
from gettin' in here, do you know what it'll be?"

"Stickin' knives and harrers in us, if they can."

"No," said Smith, laying his hand upon his companion's shoulder and
placing his lips to his ear, with the result that Wriggs started away
with his face looking of an unpleasant clay colour.

"Think so, mate?" he gasped.

"Ay, that I do, Billy. They will as sure as a gun." Oddly enough, just
about the same time as the two sailors were holding this conversation, a
chat was going on in the cabin respecting the lugger and how to get her
launched. Like Smith, the mate seemed to be suffering from a
"sentiment," and he was talking very seriously.

"I did not see it before," he said, "but it all shows what noodles we
are when we think ourselves most clever."

"Interpret," said Panton; "your words are too obscure."

"I mean about the lugger," said the mate. "I went well all over it in
my mind before I began her, and saw that it would be much easier to
build her here where everything was handy than to carry the materials
down to the edge of the lagoon."

"Of course," said Oliver. "That would have been very awkward, for the
men would have had to go to and fro morning and evening."

"But," said Panton, "a hut might have been run up for them to sleep in."

"Which means dividing a force already too weak. If the blacks make
another serious attack upon us we shall have enough to do to hold our
own here together, without having part of us defending a flimsy hut,
which they would serve at once as they will us here if we don't take
very great care."

"Eh? How?" said Oliver, startled by the mate's manner.

"Burn us out as sure as we're alive."

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

A NOVEL LAUNCH.

The idea was revived again by the mate.

"That's a pleasant way of looking at things," said Panton.

"Horrible!" exclaimed Drew, with a shiver.

"Yes, we've had enough of fire from the volcano," said Oliver, with a
glance in its direction, forgetting as he did that it was invisible from
their side of the mist.

"We have, gentlemen," said the mate, "but that will be their plan. We
may beat them off times enough, but so sure as they set thoroughly to
work to burn us out, we're done for, sir."

"You think so?"

"No, I don't think. We're as inflammable as can be, and they've only
got to bring plenty of dry, fierce, burning wood and pile it up, and
there we are as soon as they set light to it. They can have a