t of
numbers, besides being a larger and more heavily-armed vessel.

She now steered on alongside the prize for a few seconds, while her guns
were reloaded; and then, firing her broadside once more, she kept
suddenly away to run aboard her opponent.

The wind had been increasing, and the sea getting rapidly up. This was
now much to the advantage of the British, as they could fight their
weather guns far more easily than the enemy could their lee ones, the
muzzles of which were almost buried in the foam.

The stranger had got so close that Harry was not able to keep away in
time to avoid her running her bows right into the prize's quarter.

"Now we've got you, we'll keep you until we have given you more than you
bargained for!" cried True Blue, lashing the stranger's bowsprit to
their own mainmast, where she was kept in such a position that three of
their guns could be continually firing into her, while her crew could
not reach the prize's deck without taking a dangerous leap from their
bowsprit. Many attempted it; but as they reached the vessel's bulwarks,
they had to encounter the cutlasses of True Blue, Paul Pringle, and Tim
Fid, while Tom Marline and the other men kept the forward guns in active
work.

Frenchmen, negroes, Spaniards, mulattoes, and other mongrels were hurled
one after the other into the water; while numbers were jerked overboard
by the violent working of the vessels. At length, as the enemy, in
greater numbers than ever, were making a furious rush forward, fully
expecting to overwhelm the English, the bowsprit with a loud crash gave
way, carrying, as it did so, the foremast, just before wounded by a
shot, with it.

Wild shrieks and cries and imprecations rose from the savage crew--from
some as they fell into the boiling ocean below their feet, now swarming
with sharks, called around by the scent of human blood; from the rest at
their disappointment in missing their prey.

Glad as Paul would have been to make a prize, he saw that his opponent
would prove worse than a barren trophy.

"Up with the helm, Harry!" he cried. "Cut, my lads--cut everything!
Clear the wreck!"

The crew needed no second order. True Blue, axe in hand, had already
cut away the lashings of the bowsprit. A few more cuts cleared the
bowsprit shrouds and other ropes, by which the enemy still hung on, and
in another instant the prize was going off before the gale, while her
disabled opponent luffed up into the wind's e