ctors are all air, thin air," raised by the magic
pen for your amusement. Come, then, fearlessly, with me, and view the
scene of mortal strife. The launch has boarded on the starboard
gangway, and it is against her that the crew of the privateer have
directed their main efforts.

The boarding nettings cannot be divided, and the men are thrown back
wounded or dead, into the boat. The crew of the pinnace are attempting
the bows with indifferent success. Some have already fallen a sacrifice
to their valour--none have yet succeeded in gaining a footing on deck,
while the marines are resisting, with their bayonets, the thrusts of the
boarding pikes which are protruded through the ports. Courtenay has not
yet boarded in the barge, for, on pulling up on the quarter, he
perceived that, on the larboard side of the vessel, the boarding
nettings had either been neglected to be properly triced up, or had been
cut away by the fire from the boats. He has pushed alongside, to take
advantage of the opening, and the two cutters have followed him. They
board with little resistance--the enemy are too busy repelling the
attacks on the other side--and as his men pour upon the privateer's
deck, the crews of the launch and pinnace, tired with their vain
endeavours to divide the nettings, and rendered desperate by their loss,
have run up the fore and main rigging above the nettings, and thrown
themselves down, cutlass in hand into the _melee_ below, careless of the
points of the weapons which may meet them in their descent. Now is the
struggle for life or death!

Courtenay, who was daring as man could be, but not of a very athletic
frame, reclimbed from the main chains of the vessel, into which he had
already once fallen, from one of his own seamen having inadvertently
made use of his shoulder as a step to assist his own ascent. He was
overtaken by Robinson, the coxswain of the cutter, who sprang up with
all the ardour and activity of an English sailor who "meant mischief,"
and, pleased with the energy of his officer (forgetting, at the moment,
the respect due to his rank), called out to him, by the _sobriquet_ with
which he had been christened by the men,--"Bravo, _Little Bilious_!
that's your sort!"

"What's that, sir?" cried Courtenay, making a spring, so as to stand on
the plane-sheer of the vessel at the same moment with the coxswain, and
seizing him by the collar,--"I say, Robinson, what do you mean by
calling me `_Little Bil