"Don't attend to anything else.

Your duty is to keep the boat running; we'll do what fighting there is." "Very well, sir," I said, and I felt disappointed as I took the tiller, but felt better a minute later as I felt how I could sway the racing boat by a touch.
"Now, my lads, cutlasses and rifles under the thwarts.

You take the oars to these men.

Don't attack them, they are ignorant of our power.
Only keep them off with a few blows." The men eagerly responded to the words of command, and stood and sat about in the boat, each man armed with a stout, strong ashen blade, a blow from which would have sent any one overboard at once.
The chase, with our boat playing the part of hare, was exciting enough before, but it grew far more so now, for the men in the other boat were evidently determined, and two of them stood up with clumsy-looking hooks, and another with a coil of rope ready to lasso us, as it seemed to me.

And as I sat there I felt how awkward it would be if the man threw a loop over my head or chest, and dragged me out of the boat.
Naturally enough, the thought of this alone was enough to produce in me an intense desire to stand up, instead of crouching down there holding the tiller, and forced into a state of inaction, wherein I was forbidden to move or raise a hand in my defence.
"I hope they'll give a thought to me," I said to myself, as I felt that in a very few minutes they would be alongside trying to leap on board, and from my position I knew that I must be in the thick of the fight, perhaps trampled upon, and pretty sure to receive some of the blows which came flying about.
I gazed firmly forward, knowing how much depended upon my keeping the boat's head straight, and determined, as I set my teeth, to do my duty as well as possible, but I could not help turning my head from time to time to look back at the pursuers, who began shouting to us, and jabbering in their own tongue, as they were evidently now at the highest pitch of excitement.
Not many yards behind now, and gradually lessening the distance.