s comrades. The pirates had
evidently not expected such a reception, and the result of Fred's shot
filled them with dismay. They ceased rowing, and took counsel for a few
moments.

'Look out, Fred,' Charlie said, 'there is a man in the bow with a
breechloader. He's aiming at you.'

Just as he spoke the man fired, and the bullet whizzed perilously near
to Fred's head.

'Get under cover,' Charlie begged, but Fred replied calmly, 'I can do
best where I am.'

Again he fired, and this time he smashed the blade of an oar.

Finding that no one was hit by that shot, the pirates took courage, and
the three men with guns fired simultaneously, but without doing any
damage.

'I'll give them the magazine,' Fred said, and fired eight times in quick
succession. How many men he hit they never knew. Charlie and Ping Wang
saw five men throw up their arms, while a sixth, who fell overboard,
made such frantic efforts to save himself that the boat capsized.

'Now row,' Ping Wang shouted, and, pulling the three boatmen from their
hiding-places, pushed them back to their oars. Seeing that all danger
was gone, the men smiled happily as they resumed work, and were not at
all ashamed of their recent cowardice.

Charlie turned to his brother. 'Fred, I am awfully proud of you--you
have saved our lives! I wish I had joined the Volunteers. But, I say,'
he continued, 'put on your goggles, or the boatmen will see that you are
not a Chinaman.'

'They must have found that out some minutes ago,' Fred answered, 'for we
have been talking ever since we saw the pirates.'

'Perhaps they did not notice it,' Ping Wang suggested; but he soon
discovered that this was not the case.

While Fred, from force of habit, was cleaning the rifle after using it,
the boat-owner approached the travellers, and said to Ping Wang: 'The
foreigner shoots very straight in spite of his sore eyes.'

'He has saved your life,' Ping Wang replied, sharply. 'If he had not
shot the pirates, they would have killed all of us.'

'That is true, honourable brother. I and my men are full of gratitude.'

'Then you must all vow not to tell any one that he is a foreigner.'

The boatman considered the matter for a few moments. 'We will promise.
We will take an oath,' he declared at length. He lighted a piece of
paper, and, as it burned to ashes, he expressed the hope that, if he
told any one that the two men with goggles were foreigners, he might
also be totally destroyed by fire