ind the lighthouse. Meanwhile, the two boats drew near. The
lightest one was well in advance. On it came, careering on the crest of
a large glassy wave. Now was the time for broaching-to and upsetting,
but the boat was cleverly handled. It was launched into the "harbour"
on a sea of foam.

Most of the Englishmen, on seeing this, ran to oppose the landing.

"Surrender!" shouted an officer with a large moustache, standing up in
the bow of the boat.

"Never!" replied Mr Franks, defiantly.

"Hooray!" yelled Teddy Maroon, flourishing his crowbar.

At this the officer gave an order: the Frenchmen raised their muskets,
and the Englishmen scampered back to their place of shelter, laughing
like school-boys engaged in wild play. Teddy Maroon, whose fertile
brain was always devising some novelty or other, ran up to his old post
at the windlass, intending to cast a large mass of stone into the boat
when it neared the rock, hoping thereby to knock a hole through its
bottom; but before he reached his perch, a breaker burst into the
harbour and overturned the boat, leaving her crew to struggle towards
the rock. Some of them were quickly upon it, grappling with the
Englishmen who rushed forward to oppose the landing. Seeing this, Teddy
hurled his mass of stone at the head of an unfortunate Frenchman, whom
he narrowly missed, and then, uttering a howl, ran down to join in the
fray. The French commander, a powerful man, was met knee-deep in the
water, by Isaac Dorkin, whom he struck down with the hilt of his sword,
and poor Isaac's grumbling career would certainly have come to an end
then and there, had not John Potter, who had already hurled two
Frenchmen back into the sea, run to the rescue, and, catching his friend
by the hair of the head, dragged him on the rock. At that moment Teddy
Maroon dashed at the French officer, caught his uplifted sword-arm by
the wrist, and pushed him back into the sea just as he was in the act of
making a savage cut at John Potter. Before the latter had dragged his
mate quite out of danger he was grappled with by another Frenchman, and
they fell struggling to the ground, while a third came up behind Teddy
with a boat-hook, and almost took him by surprise; but Teddy turned in
time, caught the boat-hook in his left hand, and, flattening the
Frenchman's nose with his right, tumbled him over and ran to assist in
repelling another party of the invaders who were making good their
landing at the o