“Shall we make a bold charge?”
“No: stand firm,” said Dutch; and the little poorly-armed party closed up more determinedly.
“What does that mean?” thought Dutch as, at a word from the Cuban, three of the men ran back up the cabin steps.
His answer came almost directly.
“Will you surrender?” cried Lauré savagely.
“No,” was the reply.
“Then your blood be upon your own heads,” he yelled. “Fire!”
He raised his own revolver as he spoke, and began to fire shot after shot at those before him, while at the same moment three shots came crashing from behind them through the skylight.
Then, headed by the Cuban, the enemy dashed into the cabin, striking right and left with the cutlasses with which they were armed, and for a few minutes there was a desperate struggle, in which for the time, though weakened by two of their men going down at the first shots, and others being wounded, the cabin party held their own, everyone fighting manfully: but the three men who had been sent to fire through the skylight came shouting down to reinforce their comrades, and thus turned the scale.
The captain went down with a terrible cut across the forehead; Mr Parkley had a bullet through the shoulder. The doctor drove his sword through one of the scoundrels, and then it broke short off, while another stabbed him in the back.