men found themselves surrounded. As I came closer I saw Sandram go down, a spear through his left shoulder.
"Messmates ahoy!" shouted Matt Gory. "Hould th' fort until we git there!" and coming closer, he let fly his club, taking one native in the head and landing him on the sand with a cracked skull.
In another moment we were all mixed up, and each one fighting along as he saw best. I was struck twice, once on the head, and this blow dazed me and made me stagger to the edge of the woods and sink down on a rock. I tried to get up, but found myself too weak to do so and had to content myself with taking shots at long range with my revolver, until a Tagal came up and kicked the weapon from my hand and made me a close prisoner by binding my arms behind me with twisted vines.
In less than a quarter of an hour the fight was over, and two natives and poor Sandram lay dead on the beach, while several on both sides were walking around trying to deaden the pain of wounds which were more or less serious. An ear-splitting whistle from the chief of the Tagals had brought twenty or thirty others to the scene, and now our party of five were all made prisoners, Sandram being cast out into the waves which lapped the Dart's sides.
