GOLLOP AT BAY
The light of battle gleamed in Gollop’s eyes. He was no longer the constable, whose weapons were a staff and a rattle, but the boatswain of old, who had borne his part in many a fight with pirates in the days when he sailed the far seas with Captain Leake.
“I carries more flesh now than I did then,” he said afterwards, when telling the story to his cronies. “That’s what comes of marrying a good wife what looks after your vittles. Still, what you can’t help, make the best of; that’s what I always say.”
Bulky though he was, at this critical moment he showed himself astonishingly agile. He snatched two cutlasses from the stand of arms, and thrust one into Martin’s hand.
“Better than a stick, my lad,” he said. “Stand you guard over they two rascals”—he indicated Slocum and Seymour, who were sitting more or less disabled on the floor. “If they stir, touch ’em with the point.”
Then, rather breathlessly, he turned to meet the rush at the door.
Meanwhile the Frenchman was keeping an eye on Blackbeard. Disarmed and injured, the captain of the Santa Maria stood between the table and the wall, his dark face distorted with fury. Mounseer could not attack him again while he was unarmed, nor was there space or time for the duel that would have rejoiced the Frenchman’s heart. But he knew that if he took his eye off him for a moment he might expect a rush, and all that he could do was to shift his ground slightly so that he might be able to lend aid to Gollop if the crew made a determined assault through the door.
“You will have the goodness to retire yourself one step or two,” he said to Blackbeard, his tone icily polite. To give himself room it was necessary that the captain should move backward into the round-house.
Blackbeard muttered a curse under his breath, but refused to budge.
“Eh bien, voilà!” said the Frenchman, with a sudden deft movement pricking him with the point of his rapier.
The captain winced, shrieked out an oath, but made no more ado about obeying orders. Then Mounseer half turned, and stood so that he could either check Blackbeard if he showed fight, or move to Gollop’s help, as the occasion might demand.
Cutlass in hand, Martin stood over his prisoners, who had shown no sign of activity themselves, but were looking eagerly, hopefully, towards the door. Martin found it difficult to prevent his attention from being distracted by the fight that was now raging there. The crew of the vessel, headed by the officer whom Martin had seen once before, had surged in a yelling crowd towards the round-house, catching up as they ran any object that would serve as a weapon. Some had marline-spikes, one brandished a short spar, another a hanger; several had drawn evil-looking knives, and fat Sebastian wielded a meat chopper.
But there was no order or discipline among them. Shouting, gesticulating, they got in one another’s way in their struggle to reach the door, where Gollop coolly awaited their onset. His broad form blocked up the narrow entrance; the foreigners could attack only one at a time; and as they came on, one by one, each was put out of action by a sudden thrust or cut or lunge of the cutlass wielded by a master hand.
Martin glowed with admiration as he watched the swift movements of the big man. Planted firmly on his feet, his body scarcely swayed; but his sword-arm swept from side to side, and the furious yells of his opponents bespoke their sense of failure. Baffled, they fell back; they collected in a group to devise some plan whereby they might overcome this doughty defender of the door.
Suddenly there was a shout behind them.
“Ahoy! ahoy! Firk ’em! At ’em, my hearties!”
The startled group turned; there were a few moments of wild confusion. Martin, looking under Gollop’s arm, saw a welter of men, some bowled over like ninepins, others crawling away on hands and knees. The watermen, with George Hopton, taking their cue from the noises on deck, had swarmed up from the wherry and swept upon the foreigners from the rear. They burst through, irresistible; the crew scattered to right and left; and then Gollop issued forth from the doorway and joined his friends with a roar of welcome.
“Round ’em up! Round ’em up!” he cried, and striding ahead of his little party he chased the crew around the deck, across the waist, down the ladders, into every corner where they sought refuge. Bereft of their leaders they had no heart to fight. Within a very few minutes the foreigners had surrendered, and were herded into the forecastle.
A few minutes more, and the prisoners in the round-house were sitting in a disconsolate line against the wall, their hands and feet securely tied.
“A very pretty job,” said Gollop, looking approvingly at the watermen’s work. “I reckon they knots be firm enough, Mounseer; still, ’tis as well to make sure; so maybe you’ll stand over ’em with that steel of yours while we go and see what’s in them brass-bound boxes.”
The Frenchman smiled, and held his rapier at the salute.