t his rifle, and
thud, thud, thud, thud, went the niggers to the deck. It was amazing to
see them go down. After their first rush to get me, when about a dozen
had dropped, they seemed paralyzed; but he never left off pumping his
gun. By this time canoes and the two boats arrived from shore, armed
with Sniders, and with Winchesters which they had captured in the boats.
The fusillade they let loose on Saxtorph was tremendous. Luckily for him
the niggers are only good at close range. They are not used to putting
the gun to their shoulders. They wait until they are right on top of
a man, and then they shoot from the hip. When his rifle got too hot,
Saxtorph changed off. That had been his idea when he carried two rifles
up with him.

"The astounding thing was the rapidity of his fire. Also, he never
made a miss. If ever anything was inevitable, that man was. It was the
swiftness of it that made the slaughter so appalling. The niggers did
not have time to think. When they did manage to think, they went over
the side in a rush, capsizing the canoes of course. Saxtorph never let
up. The water was covered with them, and plump, plump, plump, he dropped
his bullets into them. Not a single miss, and I could hear distinctly
the thud of every bullet as it buried in human flesh.

"The niggers spread out and headed for the shore, swimming. The water
was carpeted with bobbing heads, and I stood up, as in a dream, and
watched it all--the bobbing heads and the heads that ceased to bob. Some
of the long shots were magnificent. Only one man reached the beach, but
as he stood up to wade ashore, Saxtorph got him. It was beautiful. And
when a couple of niggers ran down to drag him out of the water, Saxtorph
got them, too.

"I thought everything was over then, when I heard the rifle go off
again. A nigger had come out of the cabin companion on the run for the
rail and gone down in the middle of it. The cabin must have been full
of them. I counted twenty. They came up one at a time and jumped for the
rail. But they never got there. It reminded me of trapshooting. A black
body would pop out of the companion, bang would go Saxtorph's rifle, and
down would go the black body. Of course, those below did not know what
was happening on deck, so they continued to pop out until the last one
was finished off.

"Saxtorph waited a while to make sure, and then came down on deck. He
and I were all that were left of the DUCHESS'S complement, and I was
pr