s there was no doubt that they would
ultimately reach it--unless a shark happened to encounter them on the
way; but I did not allow the probability of their ultimate arrival on
the island to worry me much, for I felt tolerably certain that, before
that could happen, we should have made good our escape, if indeed we
were going to escape at all.

Our effective antagonists were now reduced to eight canoes and their
crews, who were all hanging together as much as possible for mutual
protection, but were making poor headway against the steadily increasing
wind and sea. If I could hinder them still further, so much the better;
and the most obvious way to do that was to weaken their crews by
wounding as many as possible: therefore I now resumed my original
tactics of tacking to and fro athwart their sterns, and raking them as
we passed. And this, I soon found, was a very excellent plan, for it
not infrequently happened that by this mode of attack I was able to make
one bullet do double, and in some cases even treble duty; the result
being that by the time that we all drew up abreast of the island the
entire fleet was in such difficulties that they were scarcely able to
make any headway at all, two of the canoes indeed being so seriously
crippled that at last, notwithstanding their close proximity to the
island, they were actually compelled to bear up and run away to leeward
again, while another of them was swamped, leaving five out of the
original ten still to contend with.

And now my trouble began in earnest, for so desperate were the savages
rendered by the merciless persecution to which they had compelled me, in
self-defence, to subject them, that they made the most strenuous efforts
to get into South-west Bay; and, indeed, it was not until I bore up and
took the extreme risk of running down one canoe that I was finally able
to turn them from their purpose. But ultimately, after a running
fight--if so one-sided an affair could be so called--four of them
contrived to weather North-west Cape and effect a landing in North Bay.
Then, after chasing them right into the bay, and keeping up a brisk fire
upon them until they landed, to the number of about one hundred and
twenty, and vanished into the woods, we in the catamaran bore up, headed
out to sea again, and made the best of our way back to South-west Bay
and the shipyard, hoping that upon our arrival we should find the
schooner afloat; for we had been gone fully four hou