elp defend it."

And he picked up a club from the ground and tried the heft of it against
a stone.

"This," he said, "seems like a pretty good tool to me." And he walked to
the bamboo fence and took his place among the other waiting fighters.

Then we all got hold of some kind of weapon with which to help our
friends, the gallant Popsipetels: I borrowed a bow and a quiver full of
arrows; Jip was content to rely upon his old, but still strong teeth;
Chee-Chee took a bag of rocks and climbed a palm where he could throw
them down upon the enemies' heads; and Bumpo marched after the Doctor
to the fence armed with a young tree in one hand and a door-post in the
other.

When the enemy drew near enough to be seen from where we stood we all
gasped with astonishment. The hillsides were actually covered with
them--thousands upon thousands. They made our small army within the
village look like a mere handful.

"Saints alive!" muttered Polynesia, "our little lot will stand no chance
against that swarm. This will never do. I'm going off to get some help."
Where she was going and what kind of help she meant to get, I had no
idea. She just disappeared from my side. But Jip, who had heard her,
poked his nose between the bamboo bars of the fence to get a better view
of the enemy and said,

"Likely enough she's gone after the Black Parrots. Let's hope she
finds them in time. Just look at those ugly ruffians climbing down the
rocks--millions of 'em! This fight's going to keep us all hopping."

And Jip was right. Before a quarter of an hour had gone by our
village was completely surrounded by one huge mob of yelling, raging
Bag-jagderags.

I now come again to a part in the story of our voyages where things
happened so quickly, one upon the other, that looking backwards I see
the picture only in a confused kind of way. I know that if it had not
been for the Terrible Three--as they came afterwards to be fondly called
in Popsipetel history--Long Arrow, Bumpo and the Doctor, the war would
have been soon over and the whole island would have belonged to the
worthless Bag-jagderags. But the Englishman, the African and the Indian
were a regiment in themselves; and between them they made that village a
dangerous place for any man to try to enter.

The bamboo fencing which had been hastily set up around the town was not
a very strong affair; and right from the start it gave way in one place
after another as the enemy thronged and crowded