at the result would be. He was loth to lose
more time: the plight of a Chinese vessel was no concern of his; yet
as he glanced up and down the bay and saw that it could obtain help
from no other quarter, he could not bring himself to leave the
hapless Chinamen to the fate that must overtake them unless he
intervened. Slackening speed, he cried to Rodier--

"We must do something."

The Frenchman nodded. Smith swung the aeroplane round, and descended
until it was circling immediately over the junk and its assailants.
Cries of amazement broke from some of the Malays as they caught sight
of this strange portent from the sky, but the greater number were
climbing up the sides of the junk, heedless of all else than the work
in hand. There was something fascinating to Smith in the spectacle:
the almost naked Malays, armed with their terrible krises, swarming on
every part of the vessel; the Chinamen with pikes, muskets, and
stink-balls fighting with the courage of despair to keep the boarders
at bay. As yet the Malays had not gained a permanent footing on the
deck, but for every man that was felled or hurled back into the praus
there were a dozen to fill the gap, and the most valorous of fighters
could not long contend against such odds.

For a little while Smith was perplexed as to what he could do to help
them. The necessity of keeping the aeroplane in motion did not permit
either Rodier or himself to use his revolver effectively. Without
doubt the Malays would be scared off if they fully realized his
presence, for they could scarcely have seen an aeroplane before, and
it must be to them a very terrifying object. But a Malay, when drunken
with hemp and his own ferocity, is as little subject to impressions of
his surroundings as an infuriated bull. The men left in the praus were
gazing up in terror at the humming aeroplane; but even during the few
seconds of Smith's hesitation the others gained the deck of the junk
forward of the mast, and with fierce yells and sweeping strokes of
their krises began to drive the Chinamen towards the poop. In a few
minutes the whole crew would be butchered and thrown to the sharks.

Suddenly an idea occurred to Smith. He planed upwards till the
aeroplane reached a height of about a hundred feet above the vessel,
calling to Rodier to bombard the boarders with the full bottles of
soda-water which they had with them. The Frenchman chuckled as he
seized the notion. Smith kept the aeroplane whee