“Houly Moses!” ejaculated Garry O’Neil, his Irish blood making him all attention now at the mere mention of fighting. “I hope ye let ’em have it hot, sor!
“Guess I did!” replied Colonel Vereker grimly, dropping unconsciously into his native vernacular, which up to now he had almost seemed to have forgotten from his long residence amongst a Spanish-speaking race. “You may bet your bottom dollar on that, sir! I aimed at that scoundrel the ‘marquis,’ but he jumped backward in his fright and his foot catching in one of the ringbolts, he tumbled right over the poop-rail on to the deck below; the shot I had intended for him dropping the black pilot, his constant companion, and who was invariably behind him. He dropped down as dead as a herring!
“Don Miguel, who luckily had just come up from the saloon, being handy with his revolver from the rough times he had experienced, like myself, in Venezuela, settled another darkie; while little Johnson, the Englishman, caught up a long hand-spike, bigger than himself, and with it knocked down two of the Haytians to his own cheek.
“Madame Boisson, meanwhile, was screaming for her husband, her brave Hercules, to come to the rescue; but the ‘brave Hercules’ had locked himself in his cabin, as my little Elsie told me afterwards; for fortunately the poor child was not feeling well and I had desired her to remain below during the hot noontide heat of the sun; and, she also said, she could hear him crying and sobbing and calling down imprecations on everybody, including ‘my wife’ and himself for both being in such a position, Madame Boisson hammering at the door all the time, and, after finding he would not reopen to her appeal for help, apostrophising him as a coward! a pig!
“During this time we were pretty busy on deck, the second mate, Basseterre, and another French seaman, who was with him in the crossjack yard, having come down from aloft to our assistance. Captain Alphonse got his revolver out, when he and Don Miguel and I giving them a volley altogether, and the others supporting us with what weapons they had, we rushed the rascals off the poop quicker than they came up, the lot returning to the forecastle along with the ‘marquis,’ who, I was very glad to see, had cut his face considerably by his tumble.
“Captain Alphonse thereupon, seeing the coast clear, sang out for Housi, his second officer, and the boatswain, who he thought were away forward, to come up aft and join us, so that we might all be together, but instead of these men, Cato, my own black servant ran up the poop-ladder and told us in much trepidation that Monsieur Housi, with the boatswain Rigault and one of the French sailors, were imprisoned in the forepeak, while the two white sailors and the steward were hard and fast in the main hold, whither they had descended to get some provisions, the mutineers slipping on the hatchway cover over them, on the ‘marquis,’ that devil, giving the signal!”
“Ah, my poor fellows!” cried Captain Alphonse. “That, then, means there are only ourselves left. Good heavens! What shall we do?”
“Why, hoist a signal of distress,” I suggested at once. “We are near Bermuda, on the cruising ground of the English men-of-war; and as these scoundrels have no friends or assistance, I daresay we’ll be able to hold out here until some vessel bears up to our aid!”
“‘Good, my friend,’ replied Captain Alphonse, who with Basseterre, the second mate, and Don Miguel, remained to keep guard with their revolvers, both seated on top of the skylight hatchway, which commanded the approaches to the poop by way of the ladders, while I, with the last of the white sailors, ran aft. Then I called out, ‘Hoist the French flag!’
“I knew that the locker with the flags was in the wheel-house, close to the taffrail, and there being no one to interfere with us, the negro who had been attending the helm having bolted the moment I pulled out my revolver at the first alarm, the traitor flying to join the other mutineers, my sailor and I soon ferretted out an old ensign, the Tricolour; when, binding it on to the signal halliards, we hoisted it about half-way up the peak of our spanker, whence it could best be seen by a passing ship.”