"Monster! the cup of death hath its own bitterness, and needs not thy impious words to drug it."
"Thou hast nothing, then, to ask?" said the bucanier, in the same tone of irony he had hitherto used. "I fain would do thee a kindness."
"I have one request!"
"Take off my irons, and let me freely spring into the grave you have designed for me!"
"Knock off his chains! The devil'll have him bound in double irons ere the waves that gape to take him in flow smooth again above his head."
The manacles were unlocked and removed, when Kyd, turning to him, asked with bitter malice,
"What else?"
"This broadsword!"
Quicker than thought, he snatched a cutlass from one of the pirates, and attacked Kyd with a sudden vigour and skill that was irresistible. The bucanier retreated on the defensive several paces before he could rally or return a single blow for the shower that rained fiercely and unceasingly upon him. At length he caught the blade of his prisoner on the guard of his own, and arrested it. An instant they stood with their crossed weapons in the air, eying each other, and then simultaneously stepped back and resumed the fight. The pirates closed round and would have struck Fitzroy in the back, but the voice of Kyd restrained them.