ad muskets lit our matches, and
I set forward across the sand, bending almost double, and making
straight for the figurehead, the others close behind me in single
file. Stones were still falling from the cliff, and I was in fear,
as we approached the vessel, lest some of the negroes should be hit
and betray us with a cry. But we arrived beneath the bow without
this mishap and undiscovered, and crept round to the larboard side,
where we were sheltered by the intervening hull.

We made for the cable to which the kedge anchor was attached, and I
began to swarm up, any sound that I may have made being smothered
by the clatter of stones on the planks of the deck. I gained the
poop without being seen, but immediately afterwards I heard a yell
from the roundhouse, and the men who had sheltered there began to
pour out.

But having seen the uselessness of their fusillade against the
cliff they had allowed their matches to go out, so that I was for
the moment safe from musket shot. When I fired and brought down the
first man, the rest hesitated, and seeing my companions clambering
up behind me they scuttled back into the roundhouse again. The
instant Joe Punchard reached the deck he swung round one of the
brass guns to command the roundhouse. It was already loaded, as the
buccaneers knew, and Joe cried out that he would send them all to
Davy Jones if they showed their noses outside the door.

The shower of stones had now ceased, and the men who had gone below
were swarming up to meet this unlooked-for boarding party. Cludde
and I, with our negroes, were upon them before they had time to
collect their wits. And then ensued as pretty a bit of close
fighting as ever I was engaged in. We laid about us right lustily
with our clubbed muskets, and I will say for the black men that
they were not a whit less doughty than the white. Our first success
had, I suppose, given them confidence; and Noah, with his firm
belief in the virtue of the talisman slung about his neck, threw
himself into the very forefront of the struggle, dodging the
cutlasses of the buccaneers with great agility, and slipping in
under their guard with shrewd thrusts of his knife.

They still outnumbered us, I think (for you may be sure I was too
busy to count them); but they were disheartened, no doubt, as any
men would be, at this rude and sudden onslaught on their security,
and with their comrades cooped up under the menace of the guns they
fought without the co