led about in the tussle; and Mani suggested that we had better
drop them overboard to save further trouble. Her blood was up, and she
was full of fight; but Hannah merely laughed, and told her not to be
such a _pun fia ai_ (tiger cat).

Showing a light, we hailed the Frenchmen's boat, and told them to come
alongside again.

'If you don't look smart we'll drop these five men overboard. So hurry
up.'

The gentleman from 'Barcelon'--who was certainly possessed of inimitable
cheek--after telling us to go to Hades, added that he had but one oar
in the boat, the others had gone adrift. So we had to dump our prisoners
into our own boat, and pull out to the other. Then, while Alan and I
covered those in the Frenchmen's boat, Hannah and two hands flung our
prisoners out of our boat into their own. Their leader took matters very
coolly, cursed his returning comrades freely as cowards, and then had
the face to ask us for some oars.

Then Hannah, who, we now found, spoke French, boiled over. Jumping into
the other boat, he seized the gentleman from Barcelona by the throat
with his left hand and rapidly pounded his face into a pulp with his
right.

Whilst Hannah was taking his satisfaction out of the big man, we struck
some matches and examined the rest of the crowd in the boat. One man, we
saw, was badly wounded, Mani having sent two bullets through his right
shoulder and one through his thigh; another had his cheek cut open, but
whether this was caused by a bullet or not I could not tell. I, being
young and green, felt very pitiful and wanted Hannah to bring the
badly-wounded man on board; but he, like a sensible man, said he would
see me hanged first, and that we ought to shoot the lot of them.

But, anyway, we gave them three oars, and then pushed clear of their
boat just as another rain squall came seething along.

At dawn we saw them, about two miles abeam of us, pulling slowly in
towards Pentecost.

We heard afterwards that they were sighted by the Sydney steamer
_Ripple_ Captain Ferguson, off Torres Island, in the Banks Group. Most
probably they abandoned the idea of stopping at Leper's Island, where
they would not be safe from recapture by the French cruisers, and
were then making for the Solomons. But that they ever reached there is
doubtful; or, if they did, they were probably eaten by the natives. The
boat, we heard, they had captured from a German vessel loading nickel
ore at one of north-eastern ports of New