The recruiter escaped the first blows aimed at him, making play with his fists until he had an opportunity to draw his revolver.

'Tom Sayers,' a Mare man, received a tomahawk blow on the head which laid the scalp open but did not penetrate his skull, fortunately.

'Bobby Towns,' another Mare boatman, had both his thumbs cut in warding off blows, one of them being so nearly severed from the hand that the doctors had to finish the operation.

Lihu, a Lifu boy, the recruiter's special attendant, was cut and pricked in various places, but nowhere seriously.

Jack, an unlucky Tanna recruit, who had been engaged to act as boatman, received an arrow through his forearm, the head of which--apiece of bone seven or eight inches long--was still in the limb, protruding from both sides, when the boats returned.