see attempting
to approach the ship.

All these arrangements, which have taken a considerable time to
describe, really occupied but two or three minutes, during which not a
sound of any description had come from the canoes, which, however, could
occasionally be caught sight of, dimly showing when the mist wreaths
thinned for a moment. Meanwhile, our own dispositions being complete, a
tense silence reigned throughout the ship, broken only by an occasional
low muttered word from one man to another.

Suddenly a shrill whistle pealed out from somewhere in the fog away on
our port hand, followed, the next instant, by a thin, whirring sound in
the air all about the ship, accompanied by sharp, crisp thuds here and
there along the bulwarks, and a thin, reedy pattering on the decks. An
object of some sort fell close to my feet, and, upon groping for it, I
found that it was an arrow. At the same moment a loud, fierce,
discordant yell burst out all round the ship, and the rattling splash of
innumerable paddles dashed into the water, reached our ears.

"Here they come; here they come!" cried the men, and a musket flashed
out of the darkness down in the waist of the ship.

"Steady, lads; steady!" cried I. "Don't fire until you can see what you
are firing at, and take good aim before you pull the trigger!"

But at that moment a whole host of canoes came dashing at us out of the
fog and darkness, and a sharp, irregular volley of musketry rattled out
fore and aft, in the midst of which bang! bang! rang out the carronades,
almost simultaneously. The discharge was immediately followed by a most
fearful outcry of shrieks and groans, and two large canoes, which had
received the contents of the carronades, paused in their rush, and went
drifting slowly past us on the tide, heaped with the motionless bodies
of their crews, and in a sinking condition. But this in nowise checked
the rush of the other canoes, which came foaming toward us, with half
their crews plying their paddles, while the other half maintained a
fierce fire with their bows and arrows.

"Reload those carronades on the forecastle," cried I, "and then train
them to rake the main-deck, fore and aft. Half of you in the waist
retreat to the topgallant forecastle, the other half to the poop, and
defend those two positions to the last gasp. Let me know when those
carronades are ready, and be careful so to depress their muzzles that
none of the charge will reach the po