Volume One--Chapter Five.
Catching a Tartar.
No wonder that the murderous band of treacherous Malays stopped paralysed in their desperate assault on the poop.
There, right facing them, in front of the saloon doors, stood the whilom quiet, delicate-looking passenger “Mr Meredith,” dressed in the smart uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a drawn sword in one hand and a revolver in the other; while drawn up behind him were the whole of the first cutter’s crew of HMS Albatross, the name of which vessel stood out embossed on the bright ribbons of their straw hats—ten in number of stalwart blue-jackets, armed with cutlasses and with pistols stuck in their belts—levelling the shining barrels of their Snider rifles point-blank at their heads. No wonder that the swarthy scoundrels recoiled in terror.
“Surrender!” exclaimed Lieutenant Meredith in a loud stern voice; and the men, frightened by the force opposed to them, might possibly have submitted, when, at the moment that Snowball made his onslaught on their leader, Jack Harvey, who stood by his captain on the poop, rather injudiciously fired off a shot from his revolver, which struck and broke one of the Malays’ outstretched arms, with crease uplifted ready to stab his enemies.
With a ferocious yell the band again rushed forward.
“Fire!” said the lieutenant; and with one report the blue-jackets delivered a volley which stretched four Malays in front of them lifeless on the deck; and then rushing forward with their drawn cutlasses, a terrific hand-to-hand fight ensued. Captain Morton and his officers on the poop fired into the mass of the Malays, and then leaped down to join the fray; and the boatswain, with Jem Backstay and the other sailors from the forecastle, caught up handspikes and fell upon their rear.
Even in the very midst of the fierce struggle Snowball and the serang, in deadly embrace, were rolling on the deck, each trying to get the upper hand so as to be able to use their knives. Neither could succeed in shaking the other off; and as the two rolled and twisted together about the deck, now a mass of blood and gore, they gradually edged away from the thick of the fight, until they rolled together close to the fore-hatch; then, with one vigorous effort, the black cook, as if he had reserved his final coup until he had wearied the other out, lifted the Malay over the combing of the hatchway, and both tumbled into the fore-hold, with a smash and crash which even made itself heard above the din, the black cook shouting out as he felt himself falling, dragging his enemy with him, “Golly, yer yeller beggar, I got you at last!”