protect them, and had not men enough to be able
to leave a large one.

When Drake arrived with his exploring party, he informed Frobisher that
he, too, had been attacked by a party of the natives, although there had
apparently not been so many of them in his case as in that of the
captain, and a few shots fired into the jungle had been sufficient to
clear the road for them. These two incidents served to convince
Frobisher that there had been no exaggeration in the tales concerning
the dangerous character of the Formosan savages; and he realised that
the sooner a stockade and fort of some description could be erected, the
better it would be for all of them.

The carpenter's chest was therefore at once opened, and the available
tools divided among as many as the supply would allow; and while four
men with axes started to cut down small trees of a size suitable to make
posts for the stockade, others set to work with their cutlasses--for
want of better instruments--to mow down and root up the scrub with which
the site of the proposed fort was covered, putting it on one side for
use afterward as a protective hedge. Others, again, using the saws,
proceeded to cut the trees into suitable lengths as soon as they were
felled by the axemen; a fourth party, using their cutlasses as spades,
undertook to dig holes for the reception of the finished posts; and the
remainder were employed in the task of guarding the labourers, with
rifle and drawn cutlass, from the chance of attack by the savages.

By midday, when all hands sat down to a hasty meal, the actual erection
of the stockade had been commenced, and by the time that darkness had
fallen the first line of posts was completed, in the form of a square
some thirty feet by thirty, all but a length of about twelve feet, which
perforce had to be left open for that night, since the men could not
work in the dark--a guard being posted there to prevent any unauthorised
persons from entering.

Fires were lighted all round the outside of the stockade, so that no
savages could approach without being seen; while light of every
description in the interior of the enclosure was strictly forbidden by
Frobisher, in order that the advantage should be all on the side of the
defenders, in the event of attack.

Half a dozen men were told off to take the first spell at guarding the
twelve-foot gap in the palisading, and two more were stationed at
loopholes which had been formed in each of the o