For a few minutes we had all our work cut out to retain the slight advantage that we had gained.  But gradually our lads drove their antagonists back until the latter were all grouped together in a dense mass round the mainmast, with our people hemming them in on every side and pressing them into such a compact crowd that at least half of them were unable to strike an effective blow.  They did what they could, however, by hurling their empty pistols into our faces over the heads of their comrades, and I was busily engaged in defending myself from the attack of a herculean negro when one of these heavy missiles struck me, the hammer taking me fairly in the centre of the forehead and so nearly stunning me that for a moment I all but lost consciousness and was completely thrown off my guard.  The next second a terrific blow crashed down upon my bare head--my hat having been lost earlier in the melee-- and I fell to the deck, my last conscious sensation being that I was being trampled upon and by, as it seemed to me, an innumerable crowd of people.  Then I swooned.