Unconsciously he drew himself up. It seemed to his crew that he actually gained in girth and height. The soul, in certain great moments, seems to have power to expand the body and inform it with the quality of immortality; Ajax, in his magnificent gesture of defiance, is all spirit. Cleggett, with his hand on his hip, uttered these words, not without their sublimity:
"Whether the Jasper B. sinks or swims, her commander will share her fate. I stay by my ship!"
CHAPTER XV
NIGHT, TEMPEST, LOVE AND BATTLE
And, indeed, if Cleggett had been of a mind to abandon the vessel, he could scarcely have done so now. For his words were no more than uttered when the sharp racket of a volley of pistol shots ripped its way through the low-pitched roaring of the wind.
Loge had chosen the height of the storm to mask his approach. He attacked with the tempest.
Without a word Cleggett put out the light in the cabin. His men grasped their weapons and followed him to the deck. A flash of lightning showed him, through the driving rain, the enemy rushing towards the Jasper B., pistol in hand. They were scarcely sixty yards away, and were firing as they came. Loge, a revolver in one hand, and Cleggett's own sword cane in the other, was leading the rush. Besides their firearms, each of Loge's men carried a wicked-looking machete.
"Fire!" shouted Cleggett. "Let them have it, men!" And the rifles blazed from the deck of the Jasper B. in a crashing volley. Instantly the world was dark again; it was impossible to determine whether the fire of the Jasper B. had taken effect.
"To the starboard bulwark," cried Cleggett, "and give them hell with the next lightning flash!"