On they all came, quickly, eagerly, thirsting for revenge on the man who was, they considered, the leading spirit in the crusade carried on against their nefarious enterprises. But Tregenna did not flinch. He had the advantage of the ground, and his own men were within call.
Planting his feet firmly in the soil, and grasping his sword, to which he chose rather to trust than to his pistol, he shouted to his men in the bushes below, and dealt a swashing blow at the burly giant, whom he guessed to be the redoubtable “Robin Cursemother,” of whose exploits he had heard.
Robin parried the blow with his cutlass, while the small man with the bludgeon, whom they addressed as Bill, came to his assistance with a swinging blow, which would have felled the lieutenant to the earth had he not sprung aside just in time to avoid the full force of it.
At the same moment the tall, thin man, whom they called “Jack,” aimed at him a blow, with the butt-end of the huge horse-pistol he carried in his belt, which made Tregenna reel.
Luckily for him, his own men had by this time seen him and recognized his peril. His arrival had made the numbers on both sides more equal; and the revenue-men, who had been getting the worst of it, took heart from the courageous stand he was making single-handed against the smugglers, and, racing up the slope in the rear of the assailants, diverted their attack.
There ensued a short, sharp hand-to-hand conflict, in which the lieutenant found himself face to face with a fresh opponent in that very “Ben the Blast” whom he had met in such strange circumstances in front of the Frigate at Hurst some days before.
Ben came up with the last batch, panting, roaring like a bull, his face and hands dyed with blood, his teeth set hard, and his eyes blood-shot and aflame.
“The damned lubber that I caught with Ann! I’ll settle him! Let me but get at him!” said he, furiously, as he came up.
By this time, however, Tregenna had gathered his men round him, so that they presented a strong front to the smugglers, who, being on lower ground than they, and somewhat overmatched in skill, if not in strength, began to give way.
The lieutenant noted this, and presently gave the signal for a simultaneous rush. Down they came, driving the cursing smugglers like sheep before them over the rough, broken ground of the slope, until Ben the Blast stumbled and fell over a stone, spraining his ankle in the fall.