“Oh, God of battles! give strength to my weak woman’s arm this day!” she rushed over to the deck of the Sea Scourge, in the midst of that hell of war, and stood by her lover’s side.
Meanwhile Justin had singled out the pirate Captain Mulligan as his own; and also Mulligan, who was a brave man, had sought out the mighty champion of the Xyphias.
And at the moment in which our amazon, cutlass in hand, boarded the Sea Scourge, these two met; and Justin’s other assailants fell back at a signal from their captain. And now, between the two, stroke followed stroke in rapid succession, each very adroitly parried. At length Mulligan lost his temper, and with that his presence of mind, and made a fierce lunge at his adversary’s heart, which was quickly parried, and before he could come to his guard again, Justin brought down a crushing stroke upon his head that felled him to the deck.
But as he was in the act of leveling this fatal blow, he caught a glimpse of a seaman with a cocked pistol pointed close to his head. He thought that his time had come; he mentally prayed that his soul might be received in heaven; he heard the report of the pistol, felt the ball whizz through his hair, and thanking the Lord for his preservation, he turned and saw—what? The seaman’s pistol arm resting on the cutlass with which Britomarte had struck it up!
To her, then, he owed his life. But there was not an instant of time to think of that now. Quick as lightning his arm flew up and his steel fell, crunching through the brain of the seaman, who dropped lifeless to the deck. Every act in this passage of arms passed with the rapidity of thought. There was not more than a minute occupied in the felling of Mulligan, the aiming of the pistol, the striking it up by Britomarte, and the braining of the assassin by Justin.
Now heedless of the battle storm that raged around them, Justin dropped upon one knee, as a knight before his queen, and, seizing the hand of his beloved, he exclaimed with deep emotion:
“I owe my life to you!”
“I have owed mine many times to you. Thank Heaven that you are saved!”
After the fall of their captain was known to them, the pirate crew submitted, crying for quarter.
The Sea Scourge was now the prize of the Xyphias.