fter this, I don't think any one thought of loading or firing
again, save one or two of the fellows astern and the coxswain of the
boat, being too busy guarding the slashes the Somalis made at us with
their long scimitar-like swords that were curved like reaping-hooks, and
the blows they dealt us with their unwieldy matchlocks, which they used
in club fashion.

It was a terrible struggle trying to climb the high overhanging sides of
the batilla in the face of such tooth and nail opposition, the beggars
fighting, as Mr Gresham had said, like veritable wild cats!

We were beaten back into the cutter twice, after some half a dozen of us
had been wounded, some desperately; and then the second cutter, which
could not manage to board her astern, coming up to our help and sheering
in alongside us, our gallant leader Mr Dabchick determined on one grand
final rush.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WE NEARLY LOSE THE CUTTER!

"Larrikins," said I, whispering in his ear, as we stood up together just
in the rear of Mr Dabchick, balancing myself on one of the thwarts
forward, being about to make another spring for the side of the big
dhow, while Larry shoved a cartridge hastily into the breech of his
rifle, and was in the act of taking a pot shot at a chap who seemed to
be the skipper of the batilla and had a nose on him like the beak of a
Brazilian parrot, "little Dabby means business!" He did.

Hardly had I said this to my chum, making him miss his aim, I am sorry
to say, at the Arab beggar, who made a cut at me the next minute and
would have sliced off my starboard fin if I had not drawn back rather
hurriedly, ere our lieutenant sprang on to the back of Jones, the other
bowman, and then jumped right clean amongst the mass of Arabs in the
bows of the dhow.

"Come on, my lads!" he cried, in the middle of his jump; "follow me!"

This was enough for us.

Without an instant's reflection I imitated Dabby, using Jones's back as
a scaling-ladder, as did half a dozen other fellows; until the poor
beggar was pretty nearly trodden flat into the bottom of the boat.

`Whiz!' went the matchlock balls of the Arabs past our ears; `whir-r-ir'
sliced away their scimitars right and left in the air, with the
regularity of so many flails at work on a barn-floor; but we did not
mind them a bit, for the `phit--phit--phit!' of the bullets from our
Martini rifles pattered amongst the bronze-coloured rascals like hail,
deadening the whiz of their lo