“What did he do?”
“Yes—draw his men off?”
“Faix, he drew Black Mazzard’s blood off, for he wint shtraight at him, knocking one pishtol up in the air wid his hand as he did so. I niver saw annything so nate in me life, sor. I told ye he’d got his best sword on—the sharp one.”
“Yes, yes!”
“Well, sor, he seemed just to lift it up and howld it forninst him, as I’m howlding this knife—so; and it wint right through Black Mazzard; just bechuckst his shoulder and his neck; and as he pulls it out he takes him by the collar and drags him down upon his knees.
“‘Come out, ye mad-brained idiots!’ he shouts at the lads inside—‘come out, or I’ll fire the powdher meself!’
“Bedad, sor, ye might have heard a pin dhrop if there’d bin wan there, but there wasn’t; and we heard Black Mazzard’s pishtol dhrop instead—the big one being on the pavemint, where it went off bang and shot a corner off a big shtone. But nobody came from inside the magazine, and the owld gintleman grinned more and more, and seemed to rowl his oies; and I belave he wanted to hear the owld place go up. And there you could hear thim inside buzzing about like my mother’s bees in the sthraw hive, when ye give it a larrup on the top wid a shtick.”
Dinny gave his head a nod, and went on. “That roused up the Captain, and he roars out—‘Here, Dinny—Dick—Bart,’ he says, ‘go in and fetch out these idiots.’ And I shpat in me fist, and ran in wid the other two. ‘Now, Dinny, my lad,’ I says to meself, ‘if ye’re blown up it’ll be bad for ye, but ye’ll be blown up towards heaven, and that’s a dale better than being blown down.’ And avore I knew where I was, I was right in among the lads, about foive-and-twenty of them; and then talk about a foight, sor! Ah, musha, it was awful!”
“Did they make such a desperate defence!”
“Deshperate, sor! Oh, that don’t describe it! Bedad, I nivver saw anything like it in me loife!”