ct of falling
under the flashing blades of a horde of yelling, shouting, ferocious
savages who, at the first wild rush, had broken into the fort, and were
now spearing the hapless Chinese seamen, who, scarcely half-awake, were
blindly searching for their rifles and cutlasses.

Himself armed, Frobisher desperately strove to break through and get to
the front, so that he might in some degree stem the rush until his men
could recover their wits; but it could not be done. The Chinese were
being driven backward and jammed together by sheer weight of numbers,
until they could move neither hand nor foot, and were being slaughtered
like sheep. The last thing that Frobisher was conscious of was that he
was shouting frenziedly for Drake; then something flashed before his
eyes, a thousand sparks danced through his brain, and he knew no more.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

JAPANESE TROOPS TO THE RESCUE.

The next thing of which Frobisher became aware was that he was in an
extremely uncomfortable position, and that he was suffering a very
considerable amount of pain. It also appeared to him that he was
experiencing an altogether unpleasant degree of warmth; while he seemed
to hear, ringing in his ears like the echo of something listened to ages
ago, the sound of what very strongly resembled a steamer's syren. Added
to this, he was conscious that there were many people quite close to
him, groaning in varying degrees of agony; and finally, as his faculties
resumed their normal condition, he began to realise that he was in a
very disagreeable predicament.

Refraining from opening his eyes, he waited patiently until the feeling
of sickness and dizziness with which he was oppressed had slightly worn
off, striving meanwhile to remember how it came about that he was
wounded in the head, and firmly lashed, with his arms behind him, to the
trunk of a tree, in unpleasant proximity to a large fire. Little by
little his memory returned, and he remembered clearly everything that
had taken place, up to the time when the enclosure had been rushed by
the Formosan savages, and he himself had fallen unconscious from the
blow of a spear haft across his head. What, he wondered, had become of
poor Drake? He had not set eyes on him during the whole of that brief
scuffle, and he began to fear the worst for his friend.

A remarkable sight revealed itself to his wondering gaze when he at
length opened his eyes. Instead of being bound to the trunk o