climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly, and they had
the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for all their stubborn
valour, they ended by being pressed back and back across the decks that
were dangerously canted to starboard by the pull of the water-logged
Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the desperate fury of men who know
that retreat is impossible, for there was no ship to which they could
retreat, and here they must prevail and make the Victorieuse their own,
or perish.

And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half
their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders,
urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate
resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his head,
and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men, called
for quarter.

Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The Elizabeth
and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's followers were being
driven back aboard their own ship for the second time. Prompt measures
were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his seamen bore their part with the
sails, and Ogle went below with a gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels
to be loosed at once. Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were already
aboard the Victorieuse. As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe,
Blood, from the quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last
upon the ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to
him almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release,
then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and eddying
about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the spot where she
had met her death.

As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the
Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood, that it
is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time. Never before
have I seen the impossible made possible by resource and valour, or
victory so gallantly snatched from defeat."

He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front. His
head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve a rag
hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed from head
to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound that he had
taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of powder on his face
to render him unrecognizable.

But from that horrible