k, and instructed each man--there were only eight
of us, all told, now--to arm himself with a cutlass and a brace of fully
loaded revolvers, and also to have a loaded gun where he could put his
hand upon it at a moment's notice. Next I caused all fore-and-aft
canvas to be loosed, all downhauls cast off, and all halyards ready for
hoisting away at a moment's notice; and when these orders had been duly
executed it seemed to me that we had done everything that was possible.

Yet the schooner was still in a very defenceless condition, so far as
resisting the simultaneous attack of several hundred determined natives
was concerned: we might empty our firearms upon them, and if every shot
told--which was most unlikely, in the excitement attendant upon an
attack--we should kill or wound precisely fifty-six of them; after which
the eight of us would be fighting, hand to hand, with the remainder, who
would outnumber us by at least twenty to one, and probably twice that
number! What chance would we have under such conditions as those?
Absolutely none at all. If, now, it were possible to raise the
schooner's bulwarks, or to render them unclimbable in some way!

As I considered this the thought of the trawl net which the skipper had
brought along for the purpose of dredging up the pearl-oysters occurred
to me, and I instantly decided that it might, with a little ingenuity,
be converted into an excellent boarding netting. It was made of extra
stout hemp line, to resist the cutting action of the oyster shells over
which it was proposed to be dragged, and also to bring up a good heavy
load without bursting, and I at once recognised that if there was enough
of it to trice up all round the schooner--and I believed there was--it
might serve to keep the natives off our decks long enough to enable us
to give them so severe a punishing as to cool their ardour effectually
and ultimately beat them off. The idea was too good not to be utilised
at once; and I gave instructions to have the net immediately routed out
and brought on deck. It was a big, heavy affair, and it took the eight
of us the best part of half an hour to clear it out of the sail-room and
get it on deck; but when at length we had done so I at once saw that,
with a certain amount of cutting and contriving, it might be made to
serve its new purpose very excellently: and forthwith all hands of us
fell upon it, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch had converted it
into a