"There was a little creek hidden from the schooner by a cape of coconut and pandanus trees, and we made the raft there, and a rotten raft it was; but it served our purpose, and when dark came down we shoved off, us four and two natives.
"The tide was with us; it was running out of the lagoon. The natives had canoe paddles, but they scarcely used them. Not a soul was on deck; they were all in the saloon drinking, and the noise was worse than a tavern on the Barbary Coast of a Saturday night. They wouldn't have heard us coming alongside if we had come blowing trumpets—which we didn't."
Schumer paused to refill and light his pipe. The lagoon was now a sheet of stars, and not a sound came but the murmur of the reef and the splash of a fish jumping in the lagoon.
"We came alongside, and in a minute we were over the rail—she had a low freeboard—every man of us. We didn't trouble about the raft, and she went out to sea on the tide.
"The saloon hatch was off, and there they were all crowded like bees in a bottle fighting and playing cards and drinking and smoking, and there as they sat we began to plug them with our Winchesters. We got six before the smoke of the firing hid them, and then we fired into the smoke and stood by to down them as they came up the companionway. They were plucky, but mad with drink, and they had no arms to speak of. One of them had a bottle in his hand, the only thing he could find to fight with; when he tumbled over into the lee scuppers he still held it unbroken, and I guess he went before his Maker with it like that.
"We settled them all with the exception of the bos'n. He skulked below, and I went down to find him. The saloon was clear of smoke and the swinging lamp was burning; dead men were lying everywhere, but no bos'n. He'd taken refuge in the old man's cabin and had barricaded the door, so that I couldn't kick it in—only managed to crack the paneling; so I began firing through it with my revolver, and then out he came with two bullets in him and a sheath knife in his hand.
"He gave me this cut before we had done with one another.
"The upshot was that every man of them was given his dose, and we took the schooner out of the lagoon, us four, with four Kanakas who joined the ship, and we had good luck all the rest of the voyage, though my arm inflamed so that I nearly lost it.
"So you see a trader's life out here is not all trading; one has to fight sometimes for what one gets, and to keep what one gets."
Floyd could not help thinking that Schumer's part in the recapture of the schooner had been more than he had stated.