We had no idea what was going on aft, and for my own part I supposed that Roger and the rest were in straits as sore as our own; but suddenly a tremendous report almost deafened us, and when our opponents turned to see what had happened we got an instant's breathing-space.
"It's the stern-chasers," Davie gasped. "They've faced 'em round!"
The light of a torch flared up and I saw shadowy shapes darting this way and that.
There were two cannon; but only one shot had been fired.
Suddenly Davie seized me by the shoulder. "See! See there!" he cried hoarsely in my ear.
I turned and followed his finger with my eyes. High on the stern of the junk, black against the starlit sky, I saw the unmistakable figure of Kipping. He was laughing—mildly. The outline of his body and the posture and motion of his head and shoulders all showed it. Then he leaped to the deck and we lost sight of him. Where he had mustered that horde of slant-eyed pirates, we never stopped to wonder. We had no time for idle questions.
I know that I, for one, finding time during the lull in the fighting to appraise our chances, expected to die there and then. A vastly greater force was attacking us, and we were divided as well as outnumbered. But if we were to die, we were determined to die fighting; so with our backs to the bulwark and with whatever weapons we had been able to snatch up in our hands, we defended ourselves as best we could and had no more respite to think of what was going on aft.
Only one stern gun, you remember, had been fired. Now the second spoke.
There was a yell of anguish as the ball cut through the midst of the pirates, a tremendous crash that followed almost instantly the report of the cannon, a sort of brooding hush, then a thunderous reverberation compared with which all other noises of the night had been as nothing.
Tongues of flame sprang skyward and a ghastly light shot far out on the sea. The junk heaved back, settled, turned slowly over and seemed to spread out into a great mass of wreckage. Pieces of timber and plank and spar came tumbling down and a few men scrambled to our decks. We could hear others crying out in the water, as they swam here and there or grasped at planks and beams to keep themselves afloat.