“Surrender!” shouted an officer with a large moustache, standing up in the bow of the boat.
“Never!” replied Mr Franks, defiantly.
“Hooray!” yelled Teddy Maroon, flourishing his crowbar.
At this the officer gave an order: the Frenchmen raised their muskets, and the Englishmen scampered back to their place of shelter, laughing like school-boys engaged in wild play. Teddy Maroon, whose fertile brain was always devising some novelty or other, ran up to his old post at the windlass, intending to cast a large mass of stone into the boat when it neared the rock, hoping thereby to knock a hole through its bottom; but before he reached his perch, a breaker burst into the harbour and overturned the boat, leaving her crew to struggle towards the rock. Some of them were quickly upon it, grappling with the Englishmen who rushed forward to oppose the landing. Seeing this, Teddy hurled his mass of stone at the head of an unfortunate Frenchman, whom he narrowly missed, and then, uttering a howl, ran down to join in the fray. The French commander, a powerful man, was met knee-deep in the water, by Isaac Dorkin, whom he struck down with the hilt of his sword, and poor Isaac’s grumbling career would certainly have come to an end then and there, had not John Potter, who had already hurled two Frenchmen back into the sea, run to the rescue, and, catching his friend by the hair of the head, dragged him on the rock. At that moment Teddy Maroon dashed at the French officer, caught his uplifted sword-arm by the wrist, and pushed him back into the sea just as he was in the act of making a savage cut at John Potter. Before the latter had dragged his mate quite out of danger he was grappled with by another Frenchman, and they fell struggling to the ground, while a third came up behind Teddy with a boat-hook, and almost took him by surprise; but Teddy turned in time, caught the boat-hook in his left hand, and, flattening the Frenchman’s nose with his right, tumbled him over and ran to assist in repelling another party of the invaders who were making good their landing at the other side of the rock.
Thus the “skrimmage,” as John Potter styled it, became general. Although out-numbered, the Englishmen were getting the best of it, when the second boat plunged into the so-called harbour, and in a few seconds the rock was covered with armed men. Of course the Englishmen were overpowered. Their tools were collected and put into the boat. With some difficulty the first boat was righted. The Englishmen were put into it, with a strong guard of marines, and then the whole party were carried on board the French schooner, which turned out to be a privateer.
Thus were the builders of the Eddystone lighthouse carried off as prisoners of war to France, and their feelings may be gathered from the last remark of Teddy Maroon, who, as the white cliffs of England were fading from his view, exclaimed bitterly, “Och hone! I’ll never see owld Ireland no more!”
Note. It may be as well to state, at this point, that the incidents here related, and indeed all the important incidents of our tale, are founded on, we believe, well authenticated facts.