Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/191

 chief paid very little attention, but wanted to rub noses with the commodore and be friends. The commodore, finding the chief deaf to all reason and all demands,  piped all hands to quarters. Then it was, "Boarders, away!" and two hundred jolly tars armed with cutlasses, bowie-knives, and pistols, were soon running up a hill,  inland from the beach about a half a mile, through a  beautiful grove of palms, to a town of about sixty houses. As we advanced towards the town the natives retreated into a grove of banana bushes a few hundred yards in  the rear. Occasionally they would run out from their hiding-places among the bushes and jungles, and brandish their war-clubs at us in a defiant manner. Finding their women and children had fled, we set fire to the  village, and it was soon laid in ashes.

The natives fired a few random shots at us from the bushes, but their powder was poor, and no damage was  done; but when they showed their dusky forms they  felt the deadly power of our carbine rifles. Many sky-rockets were also thrown into the bushes among them, which nearly frightened them to death. We could see them leap up into the air, and hear them yell out, "Curlew, curlew, curlew," meaning "spirits, spirits, spirits."

After seeing the town of Sualib reduced to ashes, we followed our file leader and returned to our boats. On our way we burned the town of Tye, containing about a hundred dwelling-houses, and many yam houses built  of bamboo. We also came across our cutter, covered with many leaves and bushes.

All hands returned to the beach without receiving even a scratch. We felt very jolly because we had, as