se from the bushes on all sides of them and rushed forward,
brandishing their clubs, and yelling like young savages. Tom had led the
boat's crew into an ambush.

"Rally by fours!" shouted the lieutenant, whipping out his cutlass,
which was instantly knocked from his grasp by a vicious blow from a club
in the hands of Will Atkins.

[Illustration: THE AMBUSH.]

"Down with the 'cademy swells!" yelled the governor. "Rush in on 'em!
Drop that cheese-knife, spooney, or down comes this yere stick right on
top of your cocoa-nut."

The attack was too sudden and furious to be successfully resisted. The
Crusoe men rushed to close quarters with the students, the light
cutlasses of the latter, which were intended more for show than use,
were beaten from their hands, and in scarcely more than five minutes
from the time the fight began, Johnny and his friends were prisoners.
This was certainly a big "backset," and one they had not dreamed of.

"Well, sir, we done it, didn't we?" panted the governor, leaning on his
club, and gazing down at his captives. "That was a splendid idea of
your'n, cap'n, an' we've carried it out, too. You see," he added, by way
of explanation, "we've been watchin' you ever since you come into the
creek. We saw the bugglars capture you sailors, an' we were glad they
done it, 'cause it saved us the trouble of doin' it ourselves. We knew
when Harding went aboard the schooner, an' when we saw that you were
goin' to get her under-way, we studied up a plan to bring you ashore. We
couldn't think of losin' our vessel, you know--she's got to take us to
our island yet--so we hid ourselves in the bushes an' sent the skipper
out on the bank with orders to show himself to you. We knew that the
sight of him an' the money would fetch you over here, if any thing
would, an' we knew, too, that if you did come, we six fellers were men
enough to whip you four in a fair fight. Wasn't it purty well done?"

The young tars thought it was, and wondered that they had not suspected
something of the kind. They might have known that Tom, in spite of all
his hostile demonstrations, had no intention of fighting them single
handed. He was not the boy to put himself in the way of bodily harm if
he could avoid it, and, now that it was too late, they were surprised
that they had been deceived by so shallow an artifice. The skipper's
boldness had blinded them completely. It led them to believe that he had
become separated from the rest of