“I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling up the water over a spirit-lamp business I used to take on these expeditions.  Incidentally I was admiring the swamp under the sunset.  All black and blood-red it was, in streaks—­a beautiful sight.  And up beyond the land rose grey and hazy to the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth.  And fifty yards behind the back of me was these blessed heathen—­quite regardless of the tranquil air of things—­plotting to cut off with the boat and leave me all alone with three days’ provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing to drink whatsoever, beyond a little keg of water.  I heard a kind of yelp behind me, and there they were in this canoe affair—­it wasn’t properly a boat—­and, perhaps, twenty yards from land.  I realised what was up in a moment.  My gun was in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets—­only duck shot.  They knew that.  But I had a little revolver in my pocket, and I pulled that out as I ran down to the beach.

“‘Come back!’ says I, flourishing it.

“They jabbered something at me, and the man that broke the egg jeered.  I aimed at the other—­because he was unwounded and had the paddle, and I missed.  They laughed.  However, I wasn’t beat.  I knew I had to keep cool, and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it.  He didn’t laugh that time.  The third time I got his head, and over he went, and the paddle with him.  It was a precious lucky shot for a revolver.  I reckon it was fifty yards.  He went right under.  I don’t know if he was shot, or simply stunned and drowned.  Then I began to shout to the other chap to come back, but he huddled up in the canoe and refused to answer.  So I fired out my revolver at him and never got near him.

“I felt a precious fool, I can tell you.  There I was on this rotten, black beach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold after the sunset, and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea.  I tell you I damned Dawsons and Jamrachs and Museums and all the rest of it just to rights.  I bawled to this nigger to come back, until my voice went up into a scream.

“There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck with the sharks.  So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and took off my clothes and waded in.  As soon as I was in the water I lost sight of the canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off.  I hoped the man in it was too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep on drifting in the same direction.  Presently it came up over the horizon again to the south-westward about.  The afterglow of sunset was well over now and the dim of night creeping up.  The stars were coming through the blue.  I swum like a champion, though my legs and arms were soon aching.