e came a crash of
musketry, followed by intermittent shots, and splinters flew from the
gunwale of the boat. Jeremy heard a gasping cry behind him and a young
sailor toppled backward from the thwart. He fell between the boys, and
as they raised him in their arms he died.

Another seaman had been killed and three more wounded by the pirate
volley, which had been fired from a distance of barely a dozen yards.
Seeing the effect of their fusillade, the buccaneers rose cheering and
yelling from behind the bulwarks of the sloop in the evident belief that
they had succeeded in demoralizing the attacking force. But the speed of
the boat had hardly been checked. In another instant the rowers shipped
their oars and the gunwale scraped along the free-board of the schooner.

"A guinea to the first man up!" cried Job, himself reaching up with
powerful fingers for a grip by which to climb.

There were no rope-ends hanging, and as the _Revenge_ in her stranded
position lay much higher forward than aft, the boys, standing in the
bows, found themselves faced by smooth planking too high to scale.

Jeremy started back over the thwarts, but heard Bob calling to him and
turned.

"Here's a place to board!" the Delaware boy was saying, and pointed
toward the forward gun-port which stood open just beyond and above the
bow of the longboat. In a twinkling Bob had straddled through the hole,
with Jeremy close after him. It was dark in the 'tween-decks and the two
boys made their way forward on tiptoe, waiting breathlessly for the
attack they felt sure would come. But apparently all the buccaneers were
busy above in the fierce fight that they could hear raging along the
rail. They moved on, undeterred, till they reached the foot of the
fo'c's'le ladder, where Jeremy feeling along the bulkhead, uttered an
exclamation.

"This is their gun-rack," he said. "And here's a musket all loaded and
primed! I'll take it along!"

The hatch cover had been drawn to, but Bob, trying it from beneath,
decided it was not fastened. Both boys tugged at it and succeeded in
sliding it back an inch or two, where it stuck.

The hubbub on deck was now terrific. They could hear, above the general
outcry, an occasional sharply gasped command in Job's voice, or a
snarling oath from one of the buccaneers, but for the most part it was a
bedlam of unintelligible shouts with a constant undertone of ringing
steel and the thud of shifting feet. Most of the firearms, appare