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Rh distinguish anything outside except the dim outline of the darkened sky against the still darker mass of trees.

"Do you suppose they are our own men?" Joan asked her brother.

"Don't know," he said. "Maybe it's a crowd Baloo and Isa have raked in from some other island—ah—!"

A shadowy form had appeared near the veranda and Chester shot at it three times in quick succession. There was a scream of pain, and at the sound of the shots there was a momentary lull in the roar of the attackers. Aiming blindly, Keith emptied his revolver into the darkness, and the other two followed suit. Over a dozen bullets swept across the cleared space, and more than one shrill note of agony from the throats of savages told that some of the lead had gone home.

A minute later there came the sound of thunderous blows on the walls at the back of the house, and Keith, leaving the other two to guard the front, slipped into his own room. A loop-hole had been bored near the window and from this he fired as fast as the trigger would work.

The attack in that quarter promptly subsided for a while. Chester and the girl were now firing furiously at the front of the house, and the sailor rushed to their assistance just in time to help in stemming an ugly rush. A dozen or more blacks had charged