supposed himself quite safe at that distance
from the hill on the other side of the creek. A light stockade, set up
hastily, was just round the turn of the street, full of his friends.
He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to his side the
Yankee deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. This lanky,
loose-jointed fellow came forward, wooden-faced, trailing his rifle
lazily. When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and
conceited smile uncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his
sallow, leathery cheeks. He prided himself on being a dead shot. He
dropped on one knee, and taking aim from a steady rest through the
unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and at once stood up to look.
The man, far away, turned his head to the report, made another step
forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his hands and
knees. In the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the
dead shot, keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry, guessed that "this
there coon's health would never be a source of anxiety to his friends
any more." The man's limbs were seen to move rapidly under his body
in an endeavour to run on all-fours. In that empty space arose a
multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The man sank flat, face
down, and moved no more. "That showed them what we could do," said Brown
to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That was what we
wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them something to
think over for the night. Not one of them had an idea of such a long
shot before. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted down-hill with
his eyes hanging out of his head."

'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin
foam on his blue lips. "Two hundred to one. Two hundred to one . . .
strike terror, . . . terror, terror, I tell you. . . ." His own eyes
were starting out of their sockets. He fell back, clawing the air with
skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy, glared at me sideways
like some man-beast of folk-lore, with open mouth in his miserable and
awful agony before he got his speech back after that fit. There are
sights one never forgets.

'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as
might have been hiding in the bushes along the creek, Brown ordered the
Solomon Islander to go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a
spaniel after a stick into the water. This failed, and the f