d when the smoke cleared away the print dress
was gone, but all the rest of the plunder was recovered on the spot.
The shirts were stripped off the bodies of the blacks; and after they
had been rinsed in a water-hole, they were found to have been not
much damaged, each shirt having only a small bullet hole in it. It
was in this way that the lilac dress escaped, and was found in the
canoe at the Old Port; the blackfellow who wore it had taken it off
and put it under his knees in the bottom of his canoe, and when the
white men's boat came after him, he was in so great a hurry to hide
himself in the scrub that he left the dress behind.

Next day there was a sudden alarm in the camp at the Old Port.
Clancy and Dick the Devil came running toward the beach, full of fear
and excitement, screaming, "The blacks, the blacks, they are coming,
hundreds of them, and they are all naked, and daubed over white, and
they have long spears."

The men who had guns--Campbell, Shay, and Davy--fetched them out
of their huts and stood ready to receive the enemy; even McClure,
although very weak, left his bed and came outside to assist in the
fight. The fringe of the scrub was dotted with the piebald bodies of
the blacks, dancing about, brandishing their spears, and shouting
defiance at the white men. They were not in hundreds, as the boys
imagined, their number apparently not exceeding forty; but it was
evident that they were threatening death and destruction to the
invaders of their territory. None, however, but the very bravest
ventured far into the cleared space, and they showed no disposition
to make a rush or anything like a concerted attack.

Campbell, after watching the enemy's movements for some time, said,
"I think it will be better to give them a taste of the nine-pounder.
Keep a look-out while I load her."

He went into his store to get the charge ready. He tied some powder
tightly in a piece of calico and rammed it home. On this he put a
nine-pound shot; but, reflecting that the aim at the dancing savages
would be uncertain, he put in a double charge, consisting of some
broken glass and a handful of nails.

He then thrust a wooden skewer down the touch-hole into the powder
bag below, primed and directed the piece towards the scrub, giving
it, as he judged, sufficient elevation to send the charge among the
thickest of the foe. As this was the first time the gun had been
brought into action, and there was no telling for