Blue Jackets: The Log of the Teaser

by George Manville Fenn

another, armed with a similar blade, go to where Tom Jecks lay, held down by three others.

I can hardly describe my sensations. Five minutes before, I was horribly frightened; the cold perspiration stood upon my forehead; my hands were wet, and my legs sank under me. But now, all the fear had gone. I knew I was to die, and I remembered the execution I had seen in that great enclosure, when with one whisk of the sword the executioner had lopped off head after head. It would not take long, I thought, and a curious exaltation came over me as I began to think of home, and at the same time my lips uttered the word “Good-bye,” which was followed by a prayer.

I did not cease muttering those words as I felt myself forced into a kneeling position, and saw that Tom Jecks was being treated in the same way. And somehow, as I prayed, the thought would come to me that the poor fellow would not feel or know anything about what was going to happen.

Just then, as the man with the big sword approached Tom Jecks, and I was watching, I did not see but I knew that the other was close behind me and a little on my left. But it did not trouble me any more than it did to know that the fierce wretches were all gazing excitedly at us, and in a high state of delight at being able to slay two of their foes.

It takes long to describe all this, but it happened very quickly.

The man had raised his sword to strike at Tom Jecks, and I shuddered and looked aside, to see the great shadow of a man on the sand at my feet, and there was a sword raised close by me.

At the same time Ching uttered a wild shriek, and the man who held his tail forced the poor fellow’s head down in the sand, but in vain; he wrenched his head sidewise, raised it, and looked towards the cliff, while I flinched slightly, for the shadow moved, as he who made it drew back to strike.

Crash!

No: it was not the falling of the sword on my poor outstretched neck, but a volley from the top of the cliff, fired by twenty of our brave blue-jackets, and half-a-dozen of the pirates fell shrieking on the sands.