For full five minutes the contest was terrific. Desperation lent additional vigor to the freebooters’ muscles, while our own men were inflamed to madness by the fall of Lennox. I had never been in a conflict of any kind whatever before, and for the first few moments—I will not hesitate to own it—a strange whirling sensation, akin to fear, swept through my brain. But a half a minute had not passed before it had vanished; and I felt a wild tumultuous excitement which seemed to endow me with the strength of a Hercules. I lost all sight of the turmoil around me. I could only see that it had become a general mêleé, in which personal prowess was of more importance than discipline. I heard a wild mingling of oaths, shouts, cries for mercy, the clashing of arms, the explosion of pistols, the shrieks of the wounded, and the fierce tramping of men struggling together in the last stage of mortal combat. But I had no time for more detailed observations. A giant ruffian singling me out from the crowd, rushed upon me with uplifted cutlass, and the next instant I would have been clove in twain, had I not caught the blow upon my blade. But so tremendous was its force that it splintered my trusty steel to fragments, and sent a shock through every nerve of my system. I staggered. But not a moment was to be lost. Already the gigantic arm of the pirate was raised on high. Happily my pistols were both as yet untouched. Springing back a step or two I jerked one from my belt, levelled it at his brain, and fired. He whirled around as if intoxicated, staggered, would have caught at the mast for support, and fell over dead upon the deck.
But I had no leisure to regard my fallen foe. The contest still raged around me fiercer than ever. On our side of the ship, however, the pirates had broken, and were retreating slowly and doggedly toward the stern. We pressed on hotly in pursuit, while shouts, curses, and huzzas, the groans of the dying, and the fierce rattling of cutlasses, formed a tumult around us of stirring excitement; but just as I rushed past the gangway, followed by a few of the bravest of our crew, a wild, long, thrilling scream from the cabin below, rose up over all the uproar of the conflict. It could come from no one but a woman—that prolonged cry of mortal agony! In an instant the retreating pirates were forgotten; I thought only of the danger of the sufferer below. Dashing aside, with the power of a giant, a brawny ruffian who would have impeded my progress, I sprang, at one leap, half way down the gangway, and with another stride found myself in the cabin of the ship.
Never shall I forget the scene that there met my eyes.
The apartment in which I stood was elegantly, even luxuriously furnished, presenting the appearance rather of a sumptuous drawing-room, than of a merchantman’s cabin. The state-rooms were of mahogany, elegantly inlaid with ebony. A service of silver and rich cut glass was ranged in the beaufut around the mast. Silken ottomans stretched along the sides of the room; a silver lamp of exquisite workmanship, depended from the ceiling; and a carpet of gorgeous pattern, and of the finest quality, covered the floor. But not a solitary individual was to be seen. A lady’s guitar, however, lay carelessly on one of the ottomans, and a few books were scattered around it in easy negligence. Could I be deceived with this corroborative testimony? Yet where was the owner of these little trifles? These reflections did not, however, occupy an instant; for I had scarcely finished a rapid survey of the cabin before another, and another shriek, ringing out just before me, roused every emotion of my heart to an uncontrollable fury. Catching sight of an undulating curtain at the farther end of the apartment, which I had imagined was only the drapery of the windows, I darted forward, and lifting up the damask, started back in horror at the sight that met my eyes.
This after cabin was smaller, and even more luxuriously fitted up than the other. But I did not remark this, at the time, for such a scene as I then witnessed, God grant I may never be called to look upon again.
As I pushed aside the curtain, three swarthy, olive-complexioned ruffians, dressed with more elaboration than any of their comrades I had yet seen, turned hastily around as if interrupted in some infamous deed, scowling upon me with the looks of demons. It needed but a glance to detect their fiendish work. A well dressed elderly man was extended at their feet, weltering in his blood. On an ottoman before them half lying, half sitting, was one of the fairest beings I had ever seen, her night dress disordered, her frame trembling, and her hair, wild and dishevelled, hanging in loose tresses from her shoulders. Her hands were covered in one or two places with blood; her eyes were wild; her face was flushed; and she panted as one does whose strength has been nearly overtasked in a desperate struggle. Never shall I forget the unutterable agony depicted on that countenance when I first entered; never shall I forget the lightning-like change which came over it as her eye fell upon me. Rushing frantically forward, while joy beamed in every feature of her face, she flung herself into my arms, shrieking hysterically,
“Oh! save me—save me—for the love of your mother, save me.”
My sudden appearance had startled the three ruffians, and for a moment they stood idle, suffering her to dart between them; but at the sound of her voice, they rushed as one man upon me. The odds were fearful, but I felt, at that instant, as if I could have dared heaven and earth in behalf of that suffering maiden. Clasping my arm around her waist, and retreating hastily into the other cabin, I shouted aloud for aid, parrying, with a cutlass I picked up at random, the attack of the miscreants. But the attempt was desperation itself. Already I had received two cuts across my arm, and I could scarcely hold my weapon in it, when the foremost ruffian, leaving my death, as he thought, to his comrades, laid his unholy hand once more upon the maiden. Good God! I thought my heart would have burst at this new insult. My determination was quicker than the electric spark of heaven. Hastily releasing the lovely burden from my hold, I seized my remaining pistol with the disengaged hand, and before the villain could perceive my purpose planted it against his face and fired. The brains spattered the ceiling, and even fell upon my own face and arm. But the miscreant was dead. Oh, the joy, the rapture of that moment! I heard, too, as the report subsided, the death-groan of another of the ruffians falling beneath the avenging cutlass of our men, who now, victorious on deck, came pouring down the hatchway. In another instant, as a shout of victory rang through the cabin, I had raised the almost senseless girl from the floor. She looked eagerly into my face, gazed wildly around, uttered a cry of joy, and convulsively clinging to me, as if for shelter, buried her head upon my bosom, and burst into a passion of hysteric tears.
The emotions of that moment were such as I had never deemed mortal being capable of experiencing. Feelings I cannot even now describe whirled through me, until my brain seemed almost to spin around in a delirium of joy. Yet there was a holiness in my emotions, far, far different from the common sensations of pleasure. I felt—I knew not how—a sudden interest in the fair being, sobbing convulsively upon my shoulder, which made her already seem dearer to me than life itself. I pressed her involuntarily to me; but a mother could not have done so with more purity to a new-born infant. Her sobs melted me so that I could scarcely keep my own eyes dry.
“God bless you, my poor, sweet girl,” I said in a husky voice, “you are among friends now.”