As a rule, I am a coward; but at that moment, my hand never so much as quivered, while I took careful aim at the leader, and he fell off the ladder at the same instant the report of my musket rang out, knocking down those who were immediately below him.
In a twinkling the entire mob had turned on us lads. They came as does a foaming wave, seeking to engulf whosoever shall have lingered on the sands, and involuntarily I closed my eyes while raising the musket like a club, in order to shut out that blow which seemingly would deprive me of life.
Fortunately, Simon’s musket was loaded, and he dropped the foremost in his tracks while the infuriated men were a dozen paces distant, thereby checking the advance ever so slightly, and in that brief interval I gathered my senses once more.
It seemed certain I would be killed, and with this belief came such courage as I had never believed could be mine.
Swinging the musket above my head, I rushed straight toward the pale-faced man I had seen apparently coming out of the solid stanchion, and not until I had taken two or three paces toward him did he show his weapon.
He—and it could be none other than the man who had played the part of ghost—had possessed himself of a boarding-pike, and I understood from the gleam in his eyes that he counted on running me through.
I brought down the musket with a force that would have floored him like an ox; but he was prepared for such an attack, and my weapon was splintered on the deck timbers, leaving me with arms so numb that, even though my life depended upon the movement, I could not raise such fragments as my hands still clutched.
[In another instant the boarding-pike would have found its way through my body], and then, as if the blow had been delivered over my shoulder, I saw the butt of a musket fall full upon the fellow’s head, crushing him to the deck.
[“IN ANOTHER INSTANT THE BOARDING PIKE WOULD HAVE FOUND ITS WAY THROUGH MY BODY.”]