"François, if you give the alarm I'll never love you again." With this coquettish adieu she followed Paul and Dick Stone, who were the last of the party.
"Steer straight for the 'Polly,' and give way, my lads! for there's no time to lose," said Paul, who had taken his position in the bow of the boat with Dick Stone, both of whom were armed with muskets, while two men with sword-bayonets were ready to follow them.
"Make a rush on board," said Paul, "and knock down everybody without asking questions; then seize the arms from the rack and chest."
The water was deep in the rocky bay; thus the "Polly" was moored to a buoy little more than two hundred yards from shore; a light was visible on board, and the lanterns of the corvette were also burning about fifty paces distant, where she lay moored by stem and stern.
They now pulled swiftly but silently toward the lugger. Paul's heart bounded with hope, while Dick Stone, as cool as ice, but determined upon the event, waited for the command. They neared the vessel. "What boat's that?" was the sudden challenge from the lugger's deck, as their boat came within a couple of oars' length. "A friend!" shouted Léontine in French, and almost in the same instant a man in the bow of the boat caught hold of the mizzen shrouds of the lugger with his boat-hook, and held on.
Paul seized a rope, and in one bound he was upon the lugger's deck, while Dick Stone followed like his shadow. To knock down the first man with a double-handed thrust with the barrel of his musket was the work of a moment, at the same instant Dick struck and felled a Frenchman who had rushed to the arm-chest. A shot was now fired by one of the French crew, and several men made a dash at the arm-rack, but Paul was there before them, and with the butt end of his musket he struck down the leader of the party.
At this moment a loud shrill cry of alarm was heard from the shore.
"Ha, le sacre François!" exclaimed Léontine, who had in the meantime attached the deserted boat to the lugger's stern. "Ha, le misérable!" she cried; "this is a return for my love!"
Two or three shots were now fired by the French crew, but without other results than to alarm the ship-of-war; the drum beat to quarters, lights were seen at her ports; a tremendous flash was accompanied by the report of a cannon as she fired an alarm-gun; this was quickly answered by a shot from a battery above the town.
The bells of the church and the prison rang wildly as shot after shot was fired from the battery, and the alarm spread like wild-fire throughout the port.