down like ninepins as they swarmed up the gangway, armed with knives and
creases.

"The captain, who was down below, had slammed and fastened the door
opening on to the waist on seeing the fellows coming aft, and handed up
to us through the skylight some loaded muskets, and managed, by standing
on the table and taking our hands, to get up himself. Then we opened
fire upon them, and in a very few minutes drove them down. We shot six
of them. The seraing of course was killed, four of the others had their
skulls fairly broken in by the blows that they had received, and five
were knocked senseless. We chucked them down the hatchway to the others,
had up four or five of the men to work the ship, and kept the rest
fastened below until we got to Singapore and handed them over to the
authorities. They all got long terms of penal servitude. Anyhow, Mr.
Atherton saved our lives and the ship, so I think you will agree with me
that he can hold his own in a scrimmage."

"It was very hot work," Mr. Atherton said with a laugh, "and I did not
get cool again for two or three days afterwards. The idea of using a man
as a club was not my own. Belzoni put down a riot among his Arab
labourers, when he was excavating ruins somewhere out in Syria, I think
it was, by knocking the ringleader down and using him as a club. I had
been reading the book not long before, and it flashed across my mind as
the seraing went down that he might be utilized. Fists are all very
well, but when you have got fellows to deal with armed with knives and
other cutting instruments it is better to keep them at a distance if you
can."

"That was splendid!" Wilfrid exclaimed. "How I should like to have seen
it!"

"It was good for the eyes," the mate said; "and bate Donnybrook
entirely. Such a yelling and shouting as the yellow reptiles made you
never heard."

By this time the meal was finished, and the passengers repaired on deck
to find that the ship was just passing Sheerness.

"Who would have thought," Wilfrid said to his sister as he looked at Mr.
Atherton, who had taken his seat in a great Indian reclining chair he
had brought for his own use, and was placidly smoking a cigar, "that
that easy, placid, pleasant-looking man could be capable of such a thing
as that! Shouldn't I like to have been there!"

"So should I," Marion agreed; "though it must have been terrible to look
at. He doesn't look as if anything would put him out I expect Samson was
somethin