aid, "get up there and tell these people that we are
going out to make peace with these Hillmen, or bring them back
prisoners of war. Tell them we are the preservers of their homes and
wives and children; and you, Bradley, take these presents, and young
Bradley, keep close to me, and carry this rifle."

Stedman's speech was hot and wild enough to suit a critical and
feverish audience before a barricade in Paris. And when he was
through, Gordon and Bradley punctuated his oration by firing off the
two Winchester rifles in the air, at which the people jumped and fell
on their knees, and prayed to their several gods. The fighting men of
the village followed the four white men to the outskirts, and took up
their stand there as Stedman told them to do, and the four walked on
over the roughly hewn road, to meet the enemy.

Gordon walked with Bradley, Jr., in advance. Stedman and old Tom
Bradley followed close behind with the two shot-guns, and the presents
in a basket.

"Are these Hillmen used to guns?" asked Gordon. Stedman said no, they
were not. "This shot-gun of mine is the only one on the island," he
explained, "and we never came near enough them before to do anything
with it. It only carries a hundred yards. The Opekians never make any
show of resistance. They are quite content if the Hillmen satisfy
themselves with the outlying huts, as long as they leave them and the
town alone; so they seldom come to close quarters."

The four men walked on for half an hour or so in silence, peering
eagerly on every side; but it was not until they had left the woods
and marched out into the level stretch of grassy country that they
came upon the enemy. The Hillmen were about forty in number, and were
as savage and ugly-looking giants as any in a picture-book. They had
captured a dozen cows and goats, and were driving them on before them,
as they advanced farther upon the village. When they saw the four men,
they gave a mixed chorus of cries and yells, and some of them stopped,
and others ran forward, shaking their spears, and shooting their broad
arrows into the ground before them. A tall, gray-bearded, muscular old
man, with a skirt of feathers about him, and necklaces of bones and
animals' claws around his bare chest, ran in front of them, and seemed
to be trying to make them approach more slowly.

"Is that Messenwah?" asked Gordon.

"Yes," said Stedman; "he is trying to keep them back. I don't believe
he ever saw a white man