rig, that they did not observe the two
midshipmen leaping in among them. Jack and Alick had on, it must be
remembered, turbans and Chinese jackets and trousers like the rest, so
in the confusion they easily passed unnoticed.

"I really think that we might drive the scoundrels out of the brig and
retake her," observed Jack as he sprang on.

"No, no, sare, one ting at a time, if oo please," answered Jos the
Malay, who heard his remark.

Jos was right, as Jack afterwards confessed, for though they might have
swept off the heads of a good many pirates engaged in collecting booty,
the rest would soon have come to their senses and cut off theirs.

Again the female cry was heard. Jack and Murray sprang into the main
cabin. It was full of Chinese rifling the lockers and searching in
bed-places or wherever anything could be stowed away. No females were
there, but there was a hatchway and a ladder leading to the deck below.
The cries proceeded from thence, so they jumped down, leaving Jos and
Hoddidoddi, who had joined them, to guard the entrance. There, in dim
uncertain light, they distinguished two ladies, apparently one old and
stout, the other young, struggling in the hands of half a dozen or more
pirates, who were endeavouring to draw the rings from their fingers, and
their earrings from their ears. One lady was somewhat stout and oldish,
the other was young and slight, and Jack thought very pretty. Whether
ugly or pretty would not have mattered just then. She and the old lady
were in distress, and that was enough to make the midshipmen eager to
fight for them, whoever they were. They were very much terrified, but
not so much so as to prevent them from endeavouring to repel the
indignities offered them.

Not a moment was to be lost. There was no room to use their swords
without running a great risk of wounding the ladies, so Jack knocked one
fellow down with his fist, and another with the butt end of his pistol.
Murray did the same. They then both planted such thorough honest
English blows under the ribs of the other two miscreants, that they sent
them reeling backwards among the casks and packages which filled the
after-hold, and there they lay sprawling, unable to get up again.

"It won't do to stop here, Alick," cried Jack. "Haul along the old
lady, I'll carry the young one; and we'll stow them away in our berth
till we see what's best to be done. Come along, miss. Beg pardon--
hadn't time to ask your