across the left arm a few moments before,
and should have known nothing of it, except
supposing that somebody had struck me a
smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen
myself covered with spouting blood, and, at
the same instant of time, seen Miss Maryon
tearing her dress, and binding it with Mrs.
Fisher's help round the wound. They called
to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop
and guard me for one minute, while I was
bound, or I should bleed to death in trying
to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with
a good sabre in his hand.

In that same moment all—things seem to
happen in that same moment, at such a time—
half-a-dozen had rushed howling at Serjeant
Drooce. The Serjeant, stepping back against
the wall, stopped one howl for ever with
such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest
to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved
face, that they stopped and looked at him.

"See him now!" cried Tom Packer.
"Now, when I could cut him out! Gill!
Did I tell you to mark my words?"

I implored Tom Packer in the Lord's
name, as well as I could in my faintness, to
go to the Serjeant's aid.

"I hate and detest him," says Tom, moodily
wavering. "Still, he is a brave man." Then
he calls out, "Serjeant Drooce, Serjeant
Drooce! Tell me you have driven me too
hard, and are sorry for it."

The Serjeant, without turning his eyes
from his assailants, which would have been
instant death to him, answers:

"No. I won't."

"Serjeant Drooce!" cries Tom, in a kind
of an agony. "I have passed my word that I
would never save you from Death, if I could,
but would leave you to die. Tell me you
have driven me too hard and are sorry for it,
and that shall go for nothing."

One of the group laid the Serjeant's bald
bare head open. The Serjeant laid him
dead.

"I tell you," says the Serjeant, breathing
a little short, and waiting for the next
attack. "No. I won't. If you are not man
enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because
he wants help, and because of nothing else,
I'll go into the other world and look for a
better man."

Tom swept upon them, and cut him out.
Tom and he fought their way through another
knot of them, and sent them flying, and came
over to where I was beginning again to feel,
with inexpressible joy, that I had got a
sword in my hand.

They had hardly come to us, when I heard,
above all the other noises, a tremendous cry
of women's voices. I also saw Miss Maryon,
with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two
hands over Mrs. Fisher's eyes. I looked
towards the silver-house, and saw Mrs.
Venning—standing upright on the top of the steps
of the trench, with her grey hair and her
dark eyes—hide her daughter's child behind
her, among the folds of her dress, strike a
pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by
his pistol.

The cry arose again, and there was a
terrible and confusing rush of the women
into the midst of the struggle. In another
moment, something came tumbling down
upon me that I thought was the wall. It
was a heap of Sambos who had come over
the wall; and of four men who clung to my
legs like serpents, one who clung to my right
leg was Christian George King.

"Yup, So-Jeer!" says he, "Christian
George King sar berry glad So-Jeer a
prisoner. Christian George King been waiting
for So-Jeer sech long time. Yup, yup!"

What could I do, with five-and-twenty of
them on me, but be tied hand and foot? So,
I was tied hand and foot. It was all over
now—boats not come back—all lost! When
I was fast bound and was put up against
the wall, the one-eyed English convict came
up with the Portuguese Captain, to have a
look at me.

"See!" says he, "Here's the determined
man! If you had slept sounder, last night,
you'd have slept your soundest last night, my
determined man."

The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool
way, and, with the flat of his cutlass, hit me
crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree
that he played with: first on the face, and
then across the chest and the wounded arm.
I looked him steady in the face without
tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy
to say; but, when they went away, I fell,
and lay there.

The sun was up, when I was roused and
told to come down to the beach and be
embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and
could not at first remember; but, I remembered
quite soon enough. The killed were
lying about all over the place, and the
Pirates were burying their dead, and taking
away their wounded on hastily-made litters,
to the back of the Island. As for us prisoners,
some of their boats had come round to the
usual harbour, to carry us off. We looked
a wretched few, I thought, when I got down
there; still, it was another sign that we had
fought well, and made the enemy suffer.

The Portuguese Captain had all the women
already embarked in the boat he himself
commanded, which was just putting off when I
got down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of
him, and gave me a moment's look, as full
of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as
if it had been an hour long. On the other
side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher,
weeping for her child and her mother. I
was shoved into the same boat with Drooce
and Packer, and the remainder of our party
of marines: of whom we had lost two privates,
besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We
all made a melancholy passage, under the hot
sun, over to the mainland. There, we landed
in a solitary place, and were mustered on the