“Ease off the main-sheet,” cried Harry, and the schooner began to glide once more through the water. We watched the boats now right astern; they still kept following us, hoping not to let their prey escape them. We had two ports in the stern, through which our guns could be fired. Harry had them dragged over for that purpose, and we at once began to blaze away at our pursuers. For some time we could see them still following us, showing that they had hitherto escaped our shot. The breeze was freshening, the schooner ran faster and faster through the water.
“Hurrah! They have given it up,” I shouted, as I saw them pulling round.
“One more parting shot,” cried old Tom, and before Harry could stop him he fired.
“That was not a miss, at all events,” he cried out.
Almost immediately afterwards we could distinguish only two boats—evidence that one of them had been sunk. In a short time we had completely lost sight of them, and all fear of pursuit was over.
We had reason to be thankful that we had avoided a fight, for, desperate as the fellows were, many of us might have been wounded, if not killed, even though we had driven them back; the alternative of their succeeding was too dreadful to contemplate. Harry at once hastened below to assure Mary and Fanny that all danger was over. I now turned in, and though I went to sleep in a moment I kept dreaming all the time that the pirates were boarding us, that we were fighting desperately; sometimes Captain Myers was on deck flourishing a cutlass, singing, “I’m afloat, I’m afloat,” and the “Rover is free,” at others, with his cut-throat companions, he was struggling in the water while old Tom was pelting them with marline-spikes.
I was very thankful when I went on deck to find the schooner running on with a fair breeze, and no land anywhere in sight. Mary and Fanny, though they had been naturally very anxious, soon recovered their spirits, and everything went on as pleasantly as could be desired, Charles Tilston was well-informed, and made himself very agreeable, and though he had no intention of becoming a sailor, he soon learned how to take an observation, and could work it out as well as Harry himself. He was always ready also to pull and haul and be as useful as he could. He spent a portion of every day in giving Dick instruction in mathematics and other subjects in which his brother was somewhat deficient, and he also kindly offered to help me with my studies.
As Harry wished to obtain samples of such produce as the islands afforded, he had settled to visit those which were at no great distance from our course to the westward.
The first island we sighted after leaving the Pearl Islands was of considerable size, with a lagoon in the centre. We observed at the south-east end a broad entrance, through which it appeared we might pass without difficulty into the lagoon. Near one side was a village, and the whole island appeared thickly covered with cocoanut and other trees. As from this it seemed probable that we might obtain some palm-oil, the schooner was hove to, and Charlie Tilston and I, with Tom Tubb and three other men, pulled for the shore. As we approached we saw a number of natives rushing down to the beach, all fully armed; but they were not so savage in appearance as those who had prevented us from landing on the islands we had before visited. They shouted and gesticulated, however, making signs that we must not attempt to set foot on shore.
We, however, still pulled on, and as we got closer, Tom Tubb hailed them, and desired to know why they were so inhospitable. They answered—