“Let me try,” I said to Tematau, clambering out of the well into the cabin. “Go and steer, but sit down on the bottom, or you'll be hit.”
Niâbon handed me my Evans' rifle in the very nick of time, for at that moment Tully stood up in the stern sheets of his boat and, giving the steer oar to a native, began to take pot shots at Tepi and myself. I waited until my hand was a bit steady, and then down he went headlong amongst his crew. I knew I could not possibly have missed him at such a short distance.
“Good!” cried Niâbon exultingly, as both Tepi and myself fired together and three of the native paddlers who were sitting facing us, rolled over off their seats, either dead or badly wounded, for in an instant the utmost confusion prevailed, some of the crew evidently wanting to come on, and the others preventing them. By this time the first boat was within easy pistol range the other, which was much larger and crowded with natives, being about forty yards astern of her, but coming along as hard as she could, two of her crew in the bows firing at us with a disgusting kind of a foreign army rifle, whose conical bullets were half as big as pigeon's eggs, and made a deuce of a noise, either when they hit the Lucia, or went by with a sort of a groanlike hum.
“Take this,” I said to Niâbon, giving her my Deane and Adams pistol, “and do you and Tepi keep off those in the nearest boat if they come on again.”
But she waved it aside, and seizing Tematau's carbine, stood up and sent her first shot crashing through the timbers of the boat.
“Quick, Tematau,” I cried, “get another rifle and fire with me at the second boat. Let ours come to the wind—it matters not.”
Picking out one of the two fellows who were shooting so steadily at us from the bows of their boat, I fired and missed, but another shot did for him, for he fell backwards and I saw his rifle fly up in the air and then drop overboard.
This was enough for them, for the steersman at once began to slew her round, and then he too went down as a bullet from Tematau took him fair and square in the chest, and we saw the blood pouring from him as he fell across the gunwale. In another ten seconds they were paddling away from us, leaving the other boat to her fate.