"Oh, no!"
"Still forty or fifty stout fellows might give us our hands full, if they were ill-disposed," remarked Wade.
"That's a fact," admitted the captain; "though I don't believe they would attempt any thing of the sort."
"Well, there is no harm in being well armed," said Raed. "Kit, you and Wash get up half a dozen of the muskets, and load them. Fix the bayonets on them too. Wade and I will load the howitzer and the mighty rifle. And, captain, I don't believe we had better have more than a dozen of them on board at one time till we know them better."
"That may be as well," replied Capt. Mazard. "It will be unpleasant having too many of them aboard at once, anyway. And, in order to have the deck under our thumb a little more, I am going to station two of the sailors with muskets, as a guard, near the man at the wheel, another amidships, and two more forward."
Meanwhile the kayaks were approaching, a whole school of them, shouting and racing with each other. Such a barbaric din! The crowd on the shore added their distant shouts.
"There's another thing we must look out for," remarked the captain. "These folks are said to be a little thievish. It will be well enough to put loose small articles out of sight."
Hastily perfecting our arrangements, we provided ourselves each with a musket, and were ready for our strange visitors. They came paddling up, one to a canoe. Their paddles had blades at each end, and were used on either side alternately, with a queer windmill sort of movement.
"Twenty-seven of them," said Kit.
"Bareheaded, every mother's son of them!" exclaimed Weymouth.