As soon as our flight was discovered the canoes gave chase.  They were small, each carrying not more than six or eight men; but from their numbers they were formidable.  The men in them were also armed with a variety of weapons, and we thought it very likely that the arrows and darts might be poisoned.  In a long line they darted out of the passage through the breakers, like hornets out of their nest, to the attack. "There they come, the black scoundrels!" exclaimed Ben Yool.  "Ten, fifteen, twenty,--there are thirty of them altogether.  They'll give us no little trouble if they once get alongside.  However, they think that they've only got their own countrymen, so to speak, to deal with. They'll find themselves out in their reckoning, I hope."