overed bodies
stood out big and grotesque.

That was our goal, I felt, and I knew that if we made a bold rush those
two could easily be driven down, while I hoped that the others would be
too much cowed to fight.

Mr Frewen and the mate were first, Mr Preddle and I behind, and I was
just thinking that it was nearly time for the whistle to be blown and
the rush made, while I thought, too, how easy it would be to make a
mistake and injure a friend with our pistols, when the ship gave such a
lurch that we all went heavily against the bulwarks, to which we clung
to save ourselves from a heavy fall, then bang, _splash_, rose a wave
over the bows, and a voice which came from one of the figures by the
light from the hatch yelled forth a torrent of oaths as he asked what
the men were doing at the wheel.

I turned cold all down my back without the help of the spray, for it was
Jarette's voice we heard, and we had bagged the wrong fox!

For a moment we clung together there in the darkness as the ship hung
over to port; then, as she righted herself, Mr Frewen, feeling
desperate, and that we could not now go back to our place, clapped the
boatswain's whistle to his lips; it sounded shrilly above that which we
could hear in the rigging, and we made our rush.

Describe what followed! How? I remember the rush; feeling mad and
desperate, and hearing, as we closed with half-a-dozen men, a couple of
shots fired quickly one after the other. Then I was in the middle of a
savage wrestling match, in which men were striking blows with all their
might, and a voice was yelling order after order in French, while we
were getting, I felt, the worst of it.

I had seized a man, who whisked me off my legs and whirled me round, but
I stuck to him till he flung me heavily on the deck, and then I wound my
arms round his legs so firmly that as the ship lurched again he fell and
rolled over with me into the scuppers, where he roared at me to let go
before he used his knife.

I need not add that he did not say use his knife, for his language was
far stronger, and he made a horrible reference to my throat. But I was
wound up then; the fighting instinct had been roused, and holding on
more tightly, I made use of my teeth as well, but not in his flesh.

Meanwhile I had a misty notion of the fight going against Mr Frewen and
my two friends, and just then Jarette yelled in French, and directly
after in English--

"Heave them overboard if they don