s
degenerating into a farce--the "Bertha's" Chinamen would not fight.

Back there, under the shelter of the schooner, it was all very well to
talk, and they had been very brave when they had all flung themselves
upon Hoang. Here, face to face with the enemy, the sun striking off
heliograph flashes from their knives and spades, it was a vastly
different matter. The thing, to Wilbur's mind, should have been done
suddenly if it was to be done at all. The best course now was to return
to camp and try some other plan. Charlie shouted a direction to him in
pigeon English that he did not understand, but he answered all right,
and moved forward another step so as to be in line with the coolie at
his left.

The liquor that he had drunk before starting began suddenly to affect
him, yet he knew that his head was yet clear. He could not bring himself
to run away before them all, but he would have given much to have
discovered a good reason for postponing the fight--if fight there was to
be.

He remembered the cocked revolver in his hand, and, suddenly raising it,
fired point-blank at his man, not fifteen feet away. The hammer snapped
on the nipple, but the cartridge did not explode. Wilbur turned to the
Chinaman next him in line, exclaiming excitedly:

"Here, say, have you got a knife--something I can fight with? This gun's
no good."

There was a shout from Moran:

"Look out, here they come!"

Two of the beach-combers suddenly sprang over the sand breastworks and
ran toward Charlie, their knives held low in front of them, ready to
rip.

"Shoot! shoot! shoot!" shouted Moran rapidly.

Wilbur's revolver was a self-cocker. He raised it again, drawing hard on
the trigger as he did so. It roared and leaped in his hand, and a whiff
of burned powder came to his nostrils. Then Wilbur was astonished to
hear himself shout at the top of his voice:

"Come on now, get into them--get into them now, everybody!"

The "Bertha's" Chinamen were all running forward, three of them well
in advance of the others. In the rear Charlie was at grapples with a
beach-comber who fought with a knife in each hand, and Wilbur had a
sudden glimpse of another sitting on the sand with his hand to his
mouth, the blood spurting between his fingers.

Wilbur suddenly realized that he held a knife, and that he was directly
abreast the sand rampart. How he got the knife he could not tell, though
he afterward distinctly remembered throwing away his revolver,