siege--but to rush back on shore and regain possession of the boat. To
this Lingard made up his mind quickly and, arming himself with a crooked
stick he found under his hand, sallied forth at the head of his three
men. As he bounded along, far in advance, he had just time to perceive
clearly the desperate nature of the undertaking, when he heard two shots
fired to his right. The solid mass of black bodies and frizzly heads in
front of him wavered and broke up. They did not run away, however.

Lingard pursued his course, but now with that thrill of exultation which
even a faint prospect of success inspires in a sanguine man. He heard a
shout of many voices far off, then there was another report of a shot,
and a musket ball fired at long range spurted a tiny jet of sand between
him and his wild enemies. His next bound would have carried him into
their midst had they awaited his onset, but his uplifted arm found
nothing to strike. Black backs were leaping high or gliding horizontally
through the grass toward the edge of the bush.

He flung his stick at the nearest pair of black shoulders and stopped
short. The tall grasses swayed themselves into a rest, a chorus of yells
and piercing shrieks died out in a dismal howl, and all at once the
wooded shores and the blue bay seemed to fall under the spell of a
luminous stillness. The change was as startling as the awakening from a
dream. The sudden silence struck Lingard as amazing.

He broke it by lifting his voice in a stentorian shout, which arrested
the pursuit of his men. They retired reluctantly, glaring back angrily
at the wall of a jungle where not a single leaf stirred. The strangers,
whose opportune appearance had decided the issue of that adventure, did
not attempt to join in the pursuit but halted in a compact body on the
ground lately occupied by the savages.