e that they
might have escaped; secondly, to see which would be the best course to
take if I ran for my life. For I could run, and pretty swiftly, then.
The hardy life I had led out in the bush, with Jimmy for my companion,
had made me light of foot and tolerably enduring.

But for some little time I saw not the slightest chance of escape.
There were too many savages close about me, and they must have divined
my ideas, for they kept a watchful eye upon every act.

At first I had felt numbed and cold. My legs and arms ached, and when
the blacks took off the rope that they had bound about my limbs every
nerve seemed to throb and burn; but by degrees this passed off, and to
my great joy I felt more myself.

At last, after a great deal of incomprehensible chatter, it seemed that
a decision had been come to about me, and a tall black armed with a
war-club came dancing up to me, swinging his weapon about, chattering
wildly, and after a few feints he made a blow at my head.

If that blow had taken effect I should not have been able to tell this
story. But I had been too much with my friend Jimmy not to be well upon
the alert. We had often played together--he like a big boy--in mimic
fight, when he had pretended to spear me, and taught me how to catch the
spear on a shield, and to avoid blows made with waddies. Jimmy's
lessons were not thrown away. I could avoid a thrown spear, though
helpless, like the black, against bullets, which he said came "too much
faster faster to top." And as the savage made the blow at me I followed
out Jimmy's tactics, threw myself forward, striking the wretch right in
the chest with my head, driving him backward, and leaping over him I ran
for my life, making straight for the forest.

"It's all because of those wretches in the other schooner yesterday," I
thought, as I ran swiftly on with a pack of the enemy shouting in my
rear; and though I could run very fast, I found, to my horror, that my
pursuers were as swift of foot, and that though I was close upon the
forest it was all so open that they would be able to see me easily, and
once caught I knew now what was to be my fate.

I began thinking of the hunted hare, as I ran on, casting glances behind
me from time to time, and seeing that though some of my pursuers lagged,
there were four who were pretty close upon my heels, one of whom hurled
his spear at me, which came whizzing past my ear so closely that it
lightly touched my shoulder,