him, tumbling down among the
rowers. Then Jensen turned and shook his fist in our direction, and
shouted out something that we could not hear because of the distance and
the slight wind.

It seemed to me as if for a moment Jensen had a mind to order his boats
to advance and try to effect a landing, and I wished this in my heart,
for I was eager to come to blows with the villains, and confident that
we should prove a match for them.

But it would seem as if discretion were to prevail with them, in which,
indeed, they were wise, for to attempt to land even a more numerous
force in the face of our well-armed men would have been rash and a rough
business. We saw the boats sweep round and row rapidly away, and we
watched those scarlet coats dwindle into red spots in the distance.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE ATTACK AT LAST

In what I am going to tell there will be little of Marjorie for a while,
for sorely against her will we refused to rank her as a fighting man and
made her keep within shelter, though busy in many ways making ready for
the inevitable attack.

Nothing happened on the next day or the next to disturb our quiet and
the beauty of the weather. For all that was evident to the contrary we
might very well have been the sole inhabitants of that archipelago, the
sole children of those seas, with Marjorie for our queen.

We did not hope, however, nor indeed did we wish, that we had heard the
last of our enemies. There was a moment even when Lancelot considered
the feasibility of our making an attack upon Early Island in the hope of
rescuing some of the captives. But the plan was only suggested to be
dismissed. For every argument which told against their attempting to
make an attack upon us told with ten times greater force against our
making an attack upon them. They outnumbered us; they were perhaps
better armed. The odds were too heavily against us. But our hearts burnt
within us at the thought of the captives.

We had evidently come in for one of those spells of fine weather which
in those regions so often follow upon such a storm as had proved the
undoing of the Royal Christopher. If the conditions had been different
our lives would have been sufficiently enviable. Fair Island deserves
its name; we had summer, food and water; so far as material comfort
went, all was well with us.

But mere material comfort could not cheer us much. We were in peril
ourselves; we were yet more concerned for the peril of Cap