"Anglais, I regret to say you sadden me somewhat." Le Basque was turning, mechanically. "I once thought you had the will to be one of us. But now . . ." His hand had slipped upward, a slight motion almost invisible in the flickering shadows. But by the time it reached his gun, the young man's long flintlock was already drawn and leveled.
"Jacques, I told you no." The dull click of a misfire sounded across the morning mist.
By now le Basque's own pistol was in his hand, primed and cocked, a part of him. Its flare opened a path through the dark between them.
But the young Englishman was already moving, driven by purest rage. He dropped to his side with a twist, an arm stretching for the fire. Then his fingers touched what he sought, and closed about the glassy neck of the shattered flask. It seared his hand, but in his fury he paid no heed. The ragged edges sparkled against the flames as he found his footing, rising as the wide arc of his swing pulled him forward.
Le Basque stumbled backward to avoid the glass, growling a French oath as he sprawled across a stack of green brush. An instant later the pile of burning logs suddenly crackled and sputtered, throwing a shower of sparks. Then again.
God help them, the young man thought, they're firing from the longboat. They must assume . . .
He turned to shout a warning seaward, but his voice was drowned in the eruption of gunfire from the camouflage along the shore. The three seamen in the boat jerked backward, all still gripping their smoking muskets, then splashed into the bay. Empty, the craft veered sideways and in moments was drifting languorously back out to sea.
Many times in later years he tried to recall precisely what had happened next, but the events always merged, a blur of gunfire. As he dashed for the surf, trailed by le Basque's curses, the dugouts began moving out, muskets spitting random flashes. He looked up to see the stout woman at the rail of the frigate brush at her face, then slump sideways into her startled husband's arms.
He remembered too that he was already swimming, stroking toward the empty boat, when the first round of cannon fire from the ship sounded over the bay, its roar muffled by the water against his face. Then he saw a second cannon flare . . . and watched the lead canoe dissolve into spray and splinters.
The others were already turning back, abandoning the attack, when he grasped the slippery gunwale of the longboat, his only hope to reach the ship. As he strained against the swell, he became dimly aware the firing had stopped.