n exceedingly efficient boarding net. Then we triced it up, and
felt that at last we were ready for whatever the fates--and the
natives--might have in store for us.

Meanwhile the jollyboat still lay abandoned upon the beach, and no sign
of her crew or of the skipper and his two companions had been seen; nor
had the strictest scrutiny, with the aid of the ship's telescope,
revealed any indication of natives ashore: in fact, so far as
appearances alone were concerned, the island might have been
uninhabited. But the continued absence of our shipmates, now prolonged
far beyond all reasonable limits, left no doubt in any of our minds that
something very seriously wrong had happened to them; and but for the
circumstance that we were in complete ignorance as to what that
happening really was, and the hope that some of them at least might
still be alive, I would at once have got the schooner under way and gone
to sea. But to do that was impossible while their fate was still in
doubt; for not even to ensure our own safety against the attack that we
were all convinced was impending could we do that which would amount to
the abandonment of possibly living white men to the mercy of the
savages.

With the tricing up and securing of the boarding netting our
preparations for the defence of the schooner were completed to the best
of our ability; and now all that remained was for us to sit down and
passively await events, which, in the present case, meant an attack by
the savages at any moment after darkness had fallen sufficiently to
conceal their movements. But, that we might be as fully prepared as
possible, I gave instructions for the advancement of the supper hour, so
that we might partake of that meal while there was still light enough to
enable us to see our surroundings; and after that we busied ourselves
about a general straightening up of the decks and the removal of all
unnecessary hamper, in order that, if fight we must, we might at least
fight with clear decks.

Fortunately for us the night fell fine and clear, with brilliant
starlight which enabled us to see all round the ship for a distance of
about a couple of hundred yards; but inshore of us the shadow of the
island lay jet-black upon the surface of the water, completely hiding
all evidence of movement in that direction, even when I attempted to
probe the blackness with the night glass. Therefore we were obliged to
trust quite as much to our ears as to our eyes