This swiftly executed manœuvre laid the Saucy Arabella board-and-board the great Spanish galleon. A dozen grapnels fell and tore and shivered the timbers of the huge San Salvador Contra Bonos Mores. A wild, yelling swarm of boarders swept over the rail—thirty men against six hundred.
On the quarter-deck, Don Dago de Matador y Mantilla, Lord Admiral of Castille y Sapolio and grandee of Spain, livid of face, short of breath, dumb with despair, frantically raged, as all Spaniards do. Speechless, he shouted conflicting contradictory commands to his craven crew. The Spaniards, though outnumbering the attacking party twenty to one, were demoralized by the knowledge that these were Englishmen, entitled to win by all the rules of the writing game.
Wolverstone, a one-eyed giant with a most kindly disposition, led the buccaneers. He was ably seconded by Hagthorpe, a soberly dressed gentleman, with a clear cut, attractive countenance, and by a golden-haired, sunny-faced Somersetshire lad, Jeremy Pitt. Up and down the waist from the keelson to the plimsoll-mark, raged these three, treating the Spaniards very rough, though no blood was shed by either party.
Above them on the quarter-deck, upon which none of these rough, common sailors thought of intruding, stood a straight-up-and-down-slip-of-a-girl, clad in shivering gray silk. Her oval face, upon which the tropic sun had made no impression, so permanent was her complexion, was shaded by the broad brim of a gray hat garnished with a scarlet austridge ploom. Her clear hazel eyes sparkled with onwee as she witnessed the furious onslaught of the invaders upon the crowded crew.
Yet for a space, as one might say, the battle hung uncertain. Push the Spaniards to and fro as they might, they were so many that the gallant little band of wild, hairy, half-naked English pirates could not keep them in order. It seemed almost impossible that they could quell the riot without calling out the mounted police.
“One moment, please!” A crisp, metallic voice, speaking the purest Castilian, cut across the tumult like a Toledo blade, beautifully damascened with golden scarabesques. At the sound of its master’s voice, the uproar ceased as suddenly and as completely as it had begun.
Arabella, for the young lady on the quarter-deck was indeed our heroine, gazing with childish wonder and hazel eyes, saw coming toward her, picking his way daintily through that ghastly shambles, a man, tall, lean, graceful, spruce, modish, etcetera.
Peter, for it was none other than he, was unscrupulously attired in a singularly elegant costume of crimson satin, trimmed, as it were, with gold lace. A broad brimmed hat, adorned with a scarlet feather secured by a brooch, set with a single great quadroon, which gleamed dully like a lambent flame, was set above beautifully marcelled and freshly oiled ringlets of deepest black, which with a broad linen collar of finest point, framed a swarthy, tawny, sardonic, keen, intrepid face and a pair of light blue eyes, like pale sapphires set in copper.
Around his neck like a stole—which it probably was—he wore a madigral of scarlet silk, from each end of which hung a silver-mounted pistol. A gold hilted sword dangled at his side from a gold embroidered garibaldi. In his left hand he carried daintily a tall ebony cane. His stockings were of silk. He wore fine Spinach leather shoes—on his feet. His suspenders were delicately hand-embroidered and his undies, though invisible, were doubtless of equal elegance. He was a very nifty dresser.
Moving with easy nonchalance, he came on until he fronted Don Dago. The light blue eyes played over the speechless Spaniard like points of steel. The level black eyebrows went up. A faint smile curled the lips of the long mouth and, with a crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner, blended of suavity, impressiveness and mockery—not to mention ansooseyance and savore fare—let alone savore veev and sang froyd—he spoke in fluent Castilian, whereof he was master, and with grave courtesy.