“Your honour,” said Bill, half choking, “I should like to have died, if it would have saved you. The villain; I only wish to live to have my hands round that ruffian’s throat.”
“Well, Bill, our turn may come yet. I have the knife, and presently we will see what we can do with it; the difficulty is, our hands being bound behind us, to open it.”
“Try, sir!” exclaimed Bill; “for the love of heaven do hold it to my mouth. I’ll open it with my teeth!”
“I am so fast to this ring-bolt that I cannot turn.”
After many efforts, however, Bill succeeded in opening the clasp knife.
“Ah! blow me, if we aint a match for them now,” exultingly exclaimed Bill, who, clasping the knife between his bound hands, contrived to saw his cords through, with only one or two slight cuts. In five minutes more, by great exertion, they were both totally freed from their bonds, Bill declaring he could then face a dozen Frenchmen, whilst his master breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. They did not fear death, but to be probably stripped, and cruelly flogged by a set of piratical ruffians, was infinitely worse than death.
“Now, keep quiet a few minutes,” said our hero, as Bill stretched his huge frame, to recover his powers, as he declared that he might annihilate every soul remaining on board the lugger. They listened for several moments, but did not hear a single foot pacing the deck above.
“Most of them have gone ashore,” whispered the Lieutenant.
“Let us look in the lockers, your honour; we may find cutlasses, or pistols.”
Opening the lockers with the key they picked up from the floor—to their intense joy, they found the large locker full of cutlasses. Bill almost shrieked for joy as he grasped a brace of them.