he
enemy, numerous as he was, appeared indisposed to commence a fight
at once, but began, to the fierce indignation of the governor, to
cut down the groves of spice trees, and to build great fires with
them.

"I don't think that they will attack until tomorrow," Ned said,
"and it would be well, therefore, to withdraw within the walls, to
plant sentries, and to allow the men to rest. We shall want all our
strength when the battle begins."

"Do you think," the governor asked, when they were seated in his
room, and had finished the repast which had been prepared, "that it
will be well to sally out to meet them in the open? Thirty white
men ought to be able to defeat almost any number of these naked
savages."

"If we had horses I should say yes," Ned said, "because then, by
our speed, we could make up for our lack of numbers; and, wheeling
about, could charge through and through them. But they are so light
and active in comparison to ourselves that we should find it
difficult, if not impossible, to bring them to a hand-to-hand
conflict. We have, indeed, the advantage of our musketoons; but I
observed at Ternate that many of the men have muskets, and the
sound of firearms would therefore in no way alarm them. With their
bows and arrows they can shoot more steadily at short distances
than we can, and we should be overwhelmed with a cloud of missiles,
while unable to bring to bear the strength of our arms and the
keenness of our swords against their clubs and rough spears. I
think that we could hold the house for a year against them; but if
we lost many men in a fight outside, it might go hard with us
afterwards."

When morning dawned the garrison beheld, to their dismay, that the
Indians had in the night erected a battery at a quarter of a mile
in front of the gate, and that in this they had placed the
culverins left on the cliff, and a score of the small pieces
carried in their war canoes.

"This is the work of the two white men we saw at Ternate," Gerald
exclaimed. "No Indian could have built a battery according to this
fashion."

As soon as it was fairly light the enemies' fire opened, and was
answered by the culverins on the roof of the house. The latter were
much more quickly and better directed than those of the Indians,
but many of the balls of the latter crashed through the great
gates.

"Shall we make a sortie?" the governor asked Ned.

"I think that we had better wait for nightfall," he replied. "In
p