Suddenly the spars of the Cocotte above him began to crackle and blaze. Plip-plop-plank! the bullets smacked all about him. He was under fire and he didn't like it. He wanted to dodge under the bulwark and lie there; but he daren't. So he ran breathlessly, skipping as a bullet spanked the deck at his feet.
They were in the enemy's main-top, swarms of them, tiny figures, crowding along the spars, grinning at him, he thought.
How on earth with a handful of men, climbing up the rigging under a pelting fire, he would ever clear that lot out!…
Even as he wondered the enemy's main-mast seemed to become alive. It swayed; it shook; it almost danced; the taut shrouds sagged.
At first the boy thought that horror had turned his brain, and he was going mad. He stopped dead and gazed.
Yes, it was coming down, coming towards him, towering, tremendous, like a falling spire.
It came in jerks, tearing its way with a snapping of stays and crashing of spars. Figures, like black birds, seemed to detach themselves, and flop through the air. They were men, thrown clear, and falling with floating coat-tails as they revolved.
One fell with an appalling bump on the deck of the sloop hard by the wheel, a man in a red coat, bear-skinn'd and gaitered. He did not stir, kneeling, his hands before him, head bowed, in attitude of adoration. A sudden pool of scarlet seemed to spurt out of the deck and island him.
Kit, his work accomplished for him, ran back to the wheel.
"Reck'n that's the chap as got me," said old Ding-dong, nodding at the dead man with a certain grim friendliness. "A red-coat, d'ye see?—Now what's the meanin o that?—I never yeard tell of a privateer carrying regulars afoor."