f the boat again.

But by this time another craft of about our own size had come alongside,
and was hanging on to us, while four more were trying to get in, and
others were pushing off from the shore.

We were being surrounded; and, enraged by our resistance, while gaining
courage from their numbers and from the fact that we made no use of
cutlass or rifle, they now made desperate efforts to get aboard.

Our men were getting desperate too, and in another minute there must
have been deplorable bloodshed, the more to be regretted as it would
have been between our sailors and a friendly power, when Jecks, after
knocking a Chinaman back into his own boat with his fist, stooped and
picked up the boat-hook we had brought on board from our now sunken
cutter. With this he did wonders, using it like a cue, Barkins
afterwards said, when I described the struggle, and playing billiards
with Chinese heads. But, be that as it may, he drove back at least a
dozen men, and then attacked one of the boats, driving the pole right
through the thin planking and sending the water rushing in.

But we were still in imminent danger of being taken prisoners, and, as
he afterwards told me, Mr Brooke was thinking seriously of sending a
charge of small-shot scattering amongst the crowd, when two of our lads
seized the sheet and began to try and hoist the matting-sail, and to my
intense delight I saw it begin to go up as easily as could be.

I flew to the tiller, but found a big Chinaman before me, and in an
instant he had me by the collar and was tugging me over the side. But I
clung to it, felt a jerk as there was a loud rap, and, thanks to Tom
Jecks, the man rolled over into the water, and began to swim.

"Now for it, my lads," shouted Mr Brooke. "All together; over with
them!"

The men cheered and struck down with the butts of their rifles, the
boat-hook was wielded fiercely, and half-a-dozen of our assailants were
driven out of the boat, but not into the others, for they fell with
splash after splash into the river. For our vessel careened over as the
sail caught the full pressure of the wind, and then made quite a bound
from the little craft by which she was surrounded.

Then a cheer arose, for we knew we could laugh at our enemies, who were
being rapidly left behind; and, while some dragged their swimming
companions into their boats, the others set up a savage yelling;
gesticulating, and no doubt telling us how, if they caught us,