ink."

"No, no," cried Nehow, vehemently, "we don't want to kill you. Stop,
and we won't hurt you."

Adams felt that loss of blood from his wound was quickly reducing his
strength. His case was desperate. He formed a quick resolve and acted
promptly. Stopping, he turned about and walked slowly but steadily back
towards the natives, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed
sternly upon them.

"Well, I have stopped, you see," he said, on coming up. "I will take
you at your word."

"We will do you no harm if you will follow us," said Timoa.

They then went together to the house of Young. Here they found its
owner, just roused by the noise of the scuffle with Adams, listening to
the explanations of the women, who were purposely trying to lead him
astray lest he should go out and be shot. The entrance of the four
natives, armed and covered with blood, and Adams unarmed and wounded, at
once showed him how matters stood.

"This is a terrible business," he said in a low tone to Adams, while the
murderers were disputing noisily about going into the woods to hunt down
McCoy and Quintal. "Have they killed many of our comrades?"

"God knows," said Adams, while Quintal's wife bound up the wound in his
neck. "There has been firin' enough to have killed us all twice over.
I thought some of you were spending the ammunition foolishly on hogs or
gulls. Williams is dead, I know, and poor Brown, for I saw their
bodies, but I can't say--"

"Fletcher Christian is killed," said Quintal's wife, interrupting.

"Fletcher Christian!" exclaimed Adams and Young in the same breath.

"Ay, and Isaac Martin and John Mills," continued the woman.

While she was speaking, the four Otaheitans, having apparently come to
an agreement as to their future proceedings, loaded their muskets
hastily, and rushing from the house soon disappeared in the woods.

We shall not harrow the reader's feelings by following farther the
bloody details of this massacre. Let it suffice to add, briefly, that
after retiring from a fruitless search for the white men in the bush,
Menalee quarrelled with Timoa and shot him. This roused the anger of
the other two against Menalee, who fled to the bush and tried to make
friends with McCoy and Quintal. This he appeared to succeed in doing,
but when he was induced by them to give up his musket, he found out his
mistake, for they soon turned it on himself and killed him. Then
Young's wife, Susannah, was