e regular "Ile Nou
stroke." If they try to board we must beat them off, or we may lose the
ship.'

Realising the danger, we at once called the native hands aft, gave each
man a loaded Sharp's rifle and half a dozen cartridges, and told him to
lay it down handy on the deck, and be prepared to use it. Hannah's wife
at once began loading our five Winchester rifles. By this time the boat
was within a hundred yards of the cutter. Whether those in her saw what
we were doing or not I do not know, but they came on very confidently.

Then, getting up on the rail, I hailed, 'Boat ahoy, there! Don't come
any nearer, or we'll fire into you. What do you want?'

There was a sudden commotion among the rowers, and then Hannah and Alan,
coming to the rail, stood beside me with their Winchesters in their
hands. This display had a good effect, for they stopped pulling at once,
and the man steering stood up. The moment I got a full view of him and
heard him speak, I knew that Hannah was right about the identity of the
strangers.

'We are a ship-a-wreck men,' he called out; 'we wanta water and
provis'.'

'Well, pull abeam or us to windward, but don't come alongside just yet.'

'All right,' was the answer.

The wind was very light, and the boat could have soon overtaken us, but
we felt confident that, with the arms we possessed, we could easily beat
them off if they tried to board. At the same time we were willing to
give them some provisions, and such other assistance as lay in our
power.

After talking the matter over with Hannah, I again hailed the boat, and
told the steersman that he could come aboard, but that the rest of his
crowd must keep to the boat.

Hauling our jib to windward, we let them range alongside, and the
steersman jumped on deck. During the few minutes that the boat was
waiting, we had a good look at her and her occupants. The former,
I could see, was German-built, very long, narrow and heavy, and was
lumbered up with a quantity of fresh coco-nuts, yams, taro and
other native food. As for the crew, they were as suspicious and as
desperate-looking a lot of scarecrows as could be imagined.

Some of them were dressed in the heavy woollen garments usually worn
by German merchant seamen, but half a dozen of them were wearing the
yellow-grey canvas trousers of the New Caledonian convict. As I looked
down at them Alan pointed out to me the muzzles of three or four short
rifles showing from beneath the edge of a rag