had been
seen standing in the after part of one of the boats. He now sprang
forward, and crossed his blade with Fleetwood, who at once recognised
him as Zappa. Both were good swordsmen, but the pirate had greater size
and strength, and his arm was, besides, untired, while Fleetwood could
scarcely wield his weapon. Zappa shouted to his men.

"Beware!" cried the Greek captain, who knew what was said.

The pirates from both boats made a simultaneous rush; a third came up at
the same time. A blow, he could not parry, struck Fleetwood down,
senseless, into the bottom of the boat; and at the same moment his
companions fell desperately wounded, except Jack Raby, who found his
sword whirled into the sea, and himself lifted, by main force, into one
of the boats, with Pietro in his company. As Fleetwood tottered on
receiving his wound, Ada Garden uttered a shriek of terror, but before
her fears overpowered her she mustered her energies for the occasion,
and endeavoured, as she knelt at the bottom of the boat, to prevent him
from receiving any further injury as he fell. Regardless of the noise
and confusion around, she raised his head on the cloaks, on which she
had been reclining; she endeavoured to stanch the blood flowing from a
deep wound in his head; she called on his name, in accents of anguish,
to revive and speak to her, but in vain--no answer could he give. She
observed not what was taking place, scarcely that his companions were
taken away; that other men filled their places, and that the boat was
being urged rapidly back towards the shore, by six fresh and powerful
oarsmen. Meantime the mistico had come up, and now hauled her wind with
her head to the northward, so that her guns might cover the retreat of
the pirate boats; but as soon as they got in order, and began to move
towards the harbour, she let draw her head sails, went about, and stood
in the same direction, none of the pirates having the slightest
intention of coming in contact with the British, if they could avoid it;
for they also, it afterwards appeared, had heard the hail of the
_Tone's_ boats, and rightly guessed from whence it came. The crews of
the British boats gave way with a will; for, finding that all the firing
had ceased, and that their hail was no longer answered, they began to
suspect the truth, and that their friends had been overtaken and
captured. Linton, it must be remembered, could not tell to a certainty
what had taken place, a