"No; we'll stay here," said the doctor. "Eh, Jack?"

"Yes; we'll stay."

"You'll manage better with men who can work, we shall be in the way."

"I want them for ballast to steady us with all this sail up," said the
mate, smiling; and without any pause the second boat was drawn close up
astern, four men crept into the leader, and the rope was allowed to run
out again.

"Think we're going to have a fight, Mr Jack?" whispered Ned, as the
doctor sat forward trying to make out the canoes through the sparkling
cloud of spray here about a mile away; "It seems like it, Ned; but I
hope not."

"You hope not, sir?"

"Of course."

"Oh, well then, I needn't mind saying I hope not too. I never was
anything in that line, sir, even when I was a boy."

"What difference does that make?"

"Difference, sir? Oh, all the difference. Men can fight, of course;
but if I was a king, and wanted to have a good army, I'd make it of
boys."

Jack stared at him, and in spite of the peril of their position, felt
disposed to smile.

"Why?" he said at last.

"Because they can fight so. They're not so big and strong; but then
they're not so easily frightened. They're always ready for a set-to,
and 'cepting where there's snakes in the way, they never think of
danger, or being hurt. And when they are hurt, the more they feel it,
the more they go, just like horses or donkeys."

"Excepting in the case of snakes," said Jack bitterly.

"Oh, don't you mind about that, sir. I was as scared as you were, I can
tell you. I remember when I was a boy I wasn't good at fighting, and I
used to get what we used to call the coward's blow, and that was the rum
part of it."

Jack stared.

"Ah, you don't understand that, sir. But it was rum. You see it was
like this; t'other chap as was crowing over me because I wouldn't fight,
would give me an out-and-out good whack for the coward's blow, and then
he wished he hadn't."

"Why?" asked Jack, after a glance at the doctor, who was still in the
bows.

"Because it hurt me, and made me wild. And then I used to go at him and
give him a good licking. That's what I was when a boy, sir, and I am
just the same now; I don't feel at all like fighting, and, coward or no
coward, I won't fight if I can help it; but if any one hurts me, or
begins to shoot at us, I think I shall get trying what I can do. But
you see it won't be fist-fists."

"No," said Jack thoughtfully; "it will not be fists."

"Hi! l