!"

Mr Mackay, however, was equally unsuccessful; for, as luck would have
it, another of the pirates jumping up in front of the chief received the
bullet intended for him.

The scoundrel who got killed was, certainly, one off the list; still,
the small fry did not count like their leader, the loss of whom all of
us thought might have paralysed the enemy's advance.

It really seemed, however, as if the gigantic villain, who towered over
his men, bore a charmed life; for, although our fellows in the tops with
the Ennelds, as well the first mate and boatswain, aimed at him, while,
now that the proa was within revolver range, the captain and Tom
Jerrold, and even I, with my little weapon, pelted bullet after bullet
in his direction, all of us missed hitting the swarthy scoundrel. We
noticed, too, on seeing him closer, that he appeared to be more of Pedro
Carvalho's nationality than belonging to the Malay race, his features
and shape of head being altogether different; albeit, he was fully as
ugly as his rascally comrades in the proa and following junks--a hybrid
lot of Javanese and Chinese and all the vile scourings of the Straits
Settlements; long-haired heavy-eyed and sullen-looking most of them,
with narrow retreating foreheads, and evidently of the lowest type of
humanity.

As they got closer and closer to the ship, too, we noticed that several
had red sashes round their blue frocks, into which were stuck fearful
curved knives and the butt-ends of pistols; and so, with "so many
Richmonds in the field," it was not to be wondered that Tim Rooney and
Mr Mackay had previously missed their mark--albeit now that the proa
was near, it was strange that they could not pick off the pirate leader,
who, as the proa sheered up alongside the Silver Queen, looked up at us
astern and grinned a horrible sardonic grin, drawing the while his
solitary left hand across his bare tawny throat with a most unmistakable
gesture.

"Ping!--ping!" came from Mr Mackay's and the boatswain's rifles again
in quick succession.

And yet again, marvellous as it may seem, they both missed. There was
no longer time, though, for any more pot shots; for, with a wild savage
howl and the beating of drums and gongs again, mingled with a shower of
jingal balls over the ship, the proa struck against the fore-chains on
our starboard bow, one of the junks steering to our port side at the
same time, while another remained across our stern and raked us fore a