ish stunned or dead. Saunderson
came out of the mission-house and watched the natives collecting them.
Denison had half-a-dozen cartridges in his hand; each one was tightly
enveloped in many thicknesses of paper, seized round with twine, and had
about six inches of fuse, with the ends carefully frayed out so as to
light easily.

"Give me some of those," said Saunderson.

The supercargo reluctantly handed him two, and Saunderson remarked that
they were very clumsily covered, but he would fix some more himself
"properly" another time. Denison sulkily observed that he had no time
to waste in making dynamite cartridges look pretty. Then, as Saunderson
walked off, he called out and told him that if he was going to shoot
fish he would want to put a good heavy stone on the cartridges.
Saunderson said when he wanted advice from any one he would ask for
it. Then he sent word by a native to Mrs. O------that he would send her
along some fish in a few minutes.

Now within a few hundred yards of the mission-house there was a jetty,
and at the end of the jetty was Her Majesty's gunboat _Badger_, a small
schooner-rigged wooden vessel commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Muddle,
one of the most irascible men that ever breathed, and who had sat on
more Consuls than any one else in the service.

Sannderson went on the jetty followed by a crowd of natives, and looked
over into the water. There were swarms of fish, just waiting to be
dynamited. He told a native to bring him a stone, and one was brought--a
nice round, heavy stone as smooth as a billiard ball--just the very
wrong kind of stone. He tied it on the cartridge at last, after it had
fallen off four or five times; then, as he did not smoke, and carried no
matches, he lit it from a native woman's cigarette, and let it drop into
the water. The stone promptly fell off, but the cartridge floated gaily,
and drifted along fizzing in a contented sort of way. Sannderson put his
hands on his hips, and watched it nonchalantly, oblivious of the fact
that all the natives had bolted back to the shore to be out of danger,
and watch things.

There was a bit of a current, and the cartridge was carried along till
it brought up gently against the _Badger_--just in a nice cosy place
between the rudder bearding and the stern-post. Then it went off with a
bang that shook the universe, and ripped off forty-two sheets of copper
from the _Badger_; and Saunderson fell off the jetty into the water; and
t