we send Hockins to look after
you. He's the only man that can keep you in order."

"Well, I'll take Hockins also," said Mark, "you heard the captain say I
was to have two men. Will you go, Hockins?"

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the seaman, sedately, but with a wrinkle or two
on his visage which proved that the proposal was quite to his taste.

All the men of the boat's crew were armed either with cutlass or
carbine--in some cases with both; for although the natives were
understood to be friendly at that part of the coast it was deemed
prudent to be prepared for the reverse. Thus John Hockins carried a
cutlass in his belt, but no fire-arm, and the young doctor had his
double-barrelled gun, with powder-flask and shot-belt, but Ebony--being
a free-and-easy, jovial sort of nigger--went unarmed, saying he "didn't
want to carry no harms, seein' he would need all harms he had to carry
back de fresh wegibles wid."

Thus those three went into the bush, promising to keep well within
ear-shot, and to return instantly at the first summons.

That summons came--not as a shout, as had been expected, but as a shot--
about an hour after the landing. Our explorers ran to the top of a
neighbouring mound in some surprise, not unmixed with anxiety. Before
they reached the summit a volley from the direction of the sea, followed
by fierce yells, told that some sort of evil was going on. Another
moment, and they reached the eminence just in time to behold their
boat's crew pulling off shore while a band of at least a hundred savages
attacked them--some rushing into the water chest-deep in order to seize
the boat. Cutlass and carbine, however, proved more than a match for
stone and spear.

The fight had scarce lasted a minute, and our trio were on the point of
rushing down to the rescue, when a white cloud burst from the side of
the _Eastern Star_, the woods and cliffs echoed with the roar of a big
gun, and a shot, plunging into the crowd of natives, cut down many of
them and went crashing into the bushes.

It was enough. The natives turned and fled while the boat pulled to the
ship.

Uncertainty as to what should be done kept Mark Breezy and his
companions rooted for a few seconds to the spot. Indecision was
banished, however, when they suddenly perceived a band of thirty or
forty natives moving stealthily towards them by a circuitous route,
evidently with the intention of taking them in rear and preventing them
from finding she