oment_ later I heard a sharp, splintering crash, followed by a dull,
crunching sound below me on the main-deck. One of the enemy's round
shot had got home through our port bulwark, so far as I could judge.

I was in a perfect fever of impatience to get additional light, though
it were ever so little, and had about made up my mind to open fire with
the Maxims without further delay, for the approaching craft were by this
time perilously close--not more than two cables' lengths distant, I
believe--when I caught a faint flicker of light from aloft, and the next
instant the baleful, blue-white glare of a portfire illuminated the
scene and revealed ten small sailing craft foaming down upon us under
the impulse of from twelve to sixteen powerfully-manned sweeps apiece.
Each craft carried a gun, which looked to be about the calibre of a
twelve-pound smooth-bore, mounted in the eyes of her; their decks were
crowded with Malays of most ferocious, malignant, and determined aspect,
and I caught the gleam and flash of the light from innumerable krisses
and rifle barrels as their owners waved them above their heads in savage
anticipation of presently getting to close-quarters with us.

It was evident that we were confronted with a most formidable and
dangerous situation, demanding the utmost promptitude of action, and I
at once turned to the crew of the port Maxim, with the command upon my
lips to them to open fire, when a cry of horror arose from the gun's
crew on the main-deck immediately below where I was standing, and a man,
looking up to me and pointing with his hand, shouted that the mate was
killed. Glancing down over the poop rail, I saw the body of poor
Kennedy stretched out on the deck in the midst of a pool of blood, with
the top of his head shot away, doubtless by the round shot that, a few
seconds earlier, I had heard crash through the bulwarks.

"Let them have the contents of every gun that will bear!" I shouted.
Then turning to the Maxim crews, I added: "Open fire upon them--the
nearest craft first; and clear their decks of men, if you can, before
they get alongside."

The light was the only thing that our lads--and the pirates too,
apparently--had been waiting for, for the next moment the guns of our
port battery crashed forth, one after the other, while our port Maxim--
the only one of the two that could be brought to bear--started its
savage thud-thudding tattoo, and in less than half a minute the ship was
env