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"Presintly the Arm'rer Sargint comes in stiffin' an' crackin' on, not pleased wid any wan, bekaze the Martini-Henry bein' new to the rig'mint in those days we used to play the mischief wid her arrangemints. 'Twas a long time before I cud get out av the way av thryin' to pull back the back-sight an' turnin' her over afther firin' as if she was a Snider.
The seamen uttered a shout of rage, and made the boat leap through the water as now, in addition to the sharp crackle of the Winchesters, they heard the heavier report of a Snider, and Harvey, jumping up on the after whaleback, and steadying himself with one hand on Atkins's shoulder, saw that only two or three of Oliver's crew were now paddling the rest had been shot down.
He was clothed in a girdle of ti leaves only; his feet were bare, cut, and bleeding; round his waist was strapped a leather belt with an empty cartridge pouch; his brawny right hand grasped a Snider rifle; his head-covering was a roughly made cap of coconut-nut leaf, with a projecting peak, designed to shield his blood-shot, savage eyes from the sun. Yet he had been a White Man.
Calling loudly upon his Solomon Islanders, he gained the deck, where he was met by Billy Onotoa, who presented a Snider carbine to his breast.
The exception was an elephant gun which I used some years afterwards, and which made my nose bleed every time I discharged it. After firing ten shots from my vicious little Snider my shoulder would turn black and blue. But it could drive a bullet straight, as many springbucks on the plains of the Orange Free State had good cause to know.
Hastening on board of the "Two Marys," I was received with great consideration by Captain Luke Snider, who said he was delighted at the prospect of having so distinguished a passenger, and with no little ceremony introduced me to his wife.
Then the mate called me a rotten young cur, shook me up, and put my Snider into my hand. But I shall always feel funky at the sight even of a child's twopenny bow and arrow. Now I must go." The clergyman nodded and smiled, and then rising from his seat, he tapped at the door of his wife's state-room. She opened it, and then Otway, who was helping the steward, heard her sob hysterically.
The gentleman had evidently come to his end defending his country from an invader. Snider again held aloft another trophy of the search a metal spike and some tarnished and corroded metal ornaments. They had lain close beside the skull. With the point of his cutlass Snider scraped the dirt and verdigris from the face of the larger ornament. "An inscription," he said, and handed the thing to me.
You didn't let them stay to hunt, did you?" inquired his wife anxiously as he sat down at the table and ordered Hop Joy to bring him something to eat. "No. They'll be here during the afternoon. I'm going to get Jim Snider and his outfit. Nails says they are at home." And briefly he told her of the information he had received from his cowboy.
The Houssas had been, on landing, furnished with their guns, which were Snider rifles, had been instructed in the breech loading arrangement, and had been set to work to practice at a mark at a hundred and fifty yards distance the stump of an old tree, some five feet in height, serving for the purpose.
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