The wind falling light, they gained on me rapidly till coming within hail, when they ceased paddling, and a bow-legged savage stood up and called to me, "Yammerschooner! yammerschooner!" which is their begging term.

I said, "No!" Now, I was not for letting on that I was alone, and so I stepped into the cabin, and, passing through the hold, came out at the fore-scuttle, changing my clothes as I went along.

That made two men.
Then the piece of bowsprit which I had sawed off at Buenos Aires, and which I had still on board, I arranged forward on the lookout, dressed as a seaman, attaching a line by which I could pull it into motion.
That made three of us, and we didn't want to "yammerschooner"; but for all that the savages came on faster than before.

I saw that besides four at the paddles in the canoe nearest to me, there were others in the bottom, and that they were shifting hands often.

At eighty yards I fired a shot across the bows of the nearest canoe, at which they all stopped, but only for a moment.