“It’s not the first ship he’s cut out, whoever he is,” answered Ethan.
“Steady,” grumbled the low-pitched voice of the swordsman. “Here they come, me jewel!”
The waist was the point at which it was chosen to board the schooner. A sharp snapping of pistols that spat redly through the darkness preceded the rush. Then a dozen active figures swarmed up the sides of the Island Queen, cutlass and pistol in hand. But bold as they appeared to be it is doubtful if they would have made the attempt had they known what awaited them upon the schooner’s deck.
As they sprang upon the rail they were met with a sharp fusilade of pistol shots that sent two of their number headlong into the bay; then Ethan and the grim dragoon drew their blades and fell upon them.
The officers and crew of the Island Queen could never tell just what happened there in the schooner’s waist in the dim light of the lanterns. They saw a dreadful whirl of blows, two swords that looked like circles of flame, two straining, panting, laboring figures that seemed to carry death in their hands. Then the decks were cleared; the shallop drew off slowly, firing an occasional musket shot, while the cries of pain from her deck showed how fierce had been her crew’s repulse.
“Go about after her,” yelled Shamus O’Moore, “we’ll board and take her, so we will!”
The officers and crew of the schooner had not struck a blow, and were very well satisfied to let matters remain as they were.
“She’s getting up sail,” said the skipper, peering through the darkness. “And we could never come up with her.”
This was true, as Ethan saw at once; under press of the two spreading lugs the shallop was already nothing but a shadow.
“Did you make out the faces of any of them?” asked Ethan, when the Island Queen was once more under way.