"The fellow had his huge hand round my throat, choking me, and ready to spring up with the hatchet in his other fist--'twas the mulatto that had been with the Portuguese--when I saw Violet Hyde dart forward between me and the stars, throwing her large shawl round his head and arm from behind him, and holding it tight, her face turned away white as death. The mulatto loosened his grasp and jumped up, throwing her reeling back to the door; but I was on my feet as soon as he, twisting his hatchet from his grip, and sent the edge of it with all my force clean down into his brain, through cashmere and everything. Ere he had time to pull it off, he was stretched, breast and knees up, over the carronade-slide at my feet.
"The dear girl had fainted. I lifted her, and hurried with her to the sofa in the round-house, my heart swelling toward her in a way no man can tell, though there was not a moment to stay, for when I reached the wheel again, a sight broke upon me that showed the fearful danger we were in. The savages in the cuddy could be heard plunging out of the port to swim ashore; and though the ebb-tide was taking the ship apparently clear round the woody turn, she had no sooner opened the wide reach, where the fog was scattering before the breeze, than we began to see a stretch of the nearest bank, off our starboard bow, glimmering out to a huge fire on the edge, that lighted up the thick white haze like sulphur--throwing a bloody red glow on the eddies in-shore, with two or three black canoes dipping up and down in them; a crowd of dark naked negroes rushing round the fire, bringing logs and branches to throw in, till up it blazed again; the sparks flying into the smoke, the feathery black jungle sinking back behind, and the banyan branches shooting out into it, as if they were alive, licking the crimson gleams with their sharp leaves; while a horrible noise of tree-drums beating and buffalo-horns blowing floated off to us.
"The wretches seemed to expect we were coming straight in to them, and they waited for us. And no wonder; for it wasn't till Jacobs came running aft, to tell the mate and me, that, to our horror, we found the canoes had got the rest of the cable fastened somehow or other low down to her cutwater, and were coolly towing us in by it. We could neither cut it nor dispose of them, as at every shot there were plenty more to fill places; while the helm was only enough to steer her, had she been free.