signs upon our boats, so he dosed them with a few charges of grape,
which caused them to sheer off `one time,' as Cupid is wont to remark.
What was the row with Nugent?"

"Lot of niggers creeping along the spit on their stomachs toward him," I
answered. "Got some idea of rushing the camp for the sake of the
plunder in it, I expect. But now that Mr Purchase and the port watch
have gone out to back him up I think we need not--hillo! that sounds
like business, though, and no mistake."

My ejaculation was caused by a sudden cracking off of some six or eight
muskets, one after the other, closely followed by a heavy if slightly
irregular volley, and the next instant the air seemed to become
positively vibrant with a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, howls, yells,
and shouts as of men engaged in close and desperate conflict. The
skipper pricked up his ears and clapped his hand to his sword-hilt; then
he turned to where Tommy and I were standing close beside him.

"Mr Copplestone," he said, "take twenty men--the first you can pick--
and go with them to support Mr Marline, for I fancy he will need a
little help presently. The rest of us are going out to support Mr
Purchase and Mr Nugent."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Tommy. He picked out the first twenty men he
could lay hands on and taarched them off to join Mr Marline's "picnic,"
as he expressed it, and the rest of us went off at the double to take
part in the scrimmage that was proceeding in the neighbourhood of the
sand pits. And a very pretty scrimmage it was, if one might judge from
the tremendous medley of sounds that reached us from that direction.
The firing was now very irregular and intermittent, but there was plenty
of yelling and shrieking mingled, as we drew nearer to the scene of the
fray, with sounds of gasping as of men engaged in a tremendous struggle,
quick ejaculations, a running fire of forecastle imprecations, the
occasional sharp order of an officer to "Rally here, lads!" dull,
sickening thuds as of heavy blows crashing through yielding bones, and
here and there a groan, or a cry for water. It was evident that the
fight had resolved itself into a desperate hand-to-hand struggle; and it
seemed to me that our lads were being hard put to it to hold their own.
But the worst feature of the whole affair, to my mind, was that the
darkness was so intense that it was almost impossible to distinguish
friend from foe.

We reached the scene of the struggle so mu