e very smartly laid in and thrown clattering on to
the deck, while every man on board, save the helmsman, sank under cover
behind the proa's low bulwark.

"Now, Mr Roberts, stand by with your hose, and give them the benefit of
it the moment they show themselves," I cried.

"Pump, boys, and fill the hose," exclaimed the mate, plunging the nozzle
into the flame of a lighted lantern that he had brought aft with him for
the purpose. The tow band instantly burst into a fierce flame, casting
a broad yellow glare on everything within its influence, and dripping
burning drops into a bucket of water with which Roberts had taken the
precaution of providing himself.

While this was doing, the proa's helm had been ported, and she now came
driving along toward our port quarter, as I had expected. When within
fifty feet of us another order was given on board her, in response to
which her crew--some eighty in number, at the very least, and as fierce
and relentless looking a set of cut-throats as I ever desire to see--
rose to their feet, with their naked creeses grasped in their hands--the
yellow glare falling strongly upon their keen steel and fierce gleaming
eyeballs--and lined her rail in readiness to spring on board us on the
instant that the sides of the two craft should touch.

"Now is your time, Mr Roberts; let them have it, fore and aft!" I
shouted.

"Pump _hard_!" cried Roberts to the men, excitedly. The handles clanked
smartly; the mate turned the tap of the jet; and in an instant a long
thin stream of oil, ignited by its passage through the flame blazing
round the orifice of the jet, poured in a flood of fire across the
intervening space of water, and struck the proa fairly in the bows. To
raise the nozzle sufficiently to touch the men was an action quick as
thought, when it was so manipulated as to cause the stream to travel
deliberately right along the entire length of the vessel's rail, from
the eyes of her to the taffrail. The effect surpassed my most sanguine
expectations; that stream of fire, thin as it was, could not be
withstood; and in less time than it takes to tell of it the deck of the
proa was full of shrieking men, who, with clothes ablaze, and suffering
Heaven only knows what extremity of torture wherever the fiery spray had
touched them, were plunging headlong below out of the way of the
dreadful missile. The helmsman had, as I expected, instinctively put
his helm hard a starboard the instant tha