"John Hurdiss of the Young Eagle," I cried, throwing off my cloak. Just as I was about to dive overboard I felt myself grasped about the arm.
It was De Rembolez who had laid hold of me. The words he hissed I did not catch, but in order to loose myself I drew back my free hand and caught him a blow fairly between the eyes. He did not relax his hold, however, and endeavored to throw me into the bottom of the boat. Although he was a powerful man, he probably did not know much about wrestling. I had the firmer footing, and twisting him round, I turned the tables, and was forcing him away from me, when he sank his great white teeth into the sleeve of my coat. Had he caught my flesh I might have lost the use of my arm, but as it was he laid hold of the cloth only, and the sleeve parted at the shoulder; but the little French cockswain now decided to take a hand, and sprang upon me from behind, but the result was to my helping. I just remembered hearing the sharp snapping of Monsieur de la Remy's pistol, which missed fire, when I went overboard over the gunwale, and with me fell Beady Eyes and the little cockswain. I came up between the two boats. In the mean time both the crews were laying about with their oars over my head, and there was a lusty scrimmage going on. As soon as he felt the water closing over him, De Rembolez released his hold, but the little 'longshoreman in the striped shirt still held on, and before I knew it some one grabbed me and him also, and pulled us both over into the long white boat. Somehow the combatants had drifted apart, and with a quickness that was surprising the Yankees had got out their oars and were giving way.
I scrambled to my feet, and looking over the stern I saw that the other boat was after us, but they never could have caught us had they been pulling two men on a thwart. In five minutes they turned about and made off in the opposite direction.
"Douse my top-lights!" exclaimed Plummer, leaning forward and smearing the blood away from a slight wound on the side of his face. "Where, in the name of goodness, did you come from, lad?"
"From an English prison, in the first place," I said; "but it's a long story. Oh, but I will be glad to see our colors again!"
The French cockswain here interrupted any more questions or explanations by an effort to jump overboard.
"Lay hold of him," cried Plummer to the men in the bow. "Hold the frog-eater!" and in a minute they had pinioned the little Frenchman down. "Pull, larboard; hold, star-board!" Plummer cried all at once, jamming the helm down, and I, following the glance of his eye, saw the outlines of a vessel not five hundred yards away.
"What ship is that?" I asked.
"The Yankee, privateer," my friend replied. "The luckiest vessel ever launched—that's honest truth. Oh, we've some yarns to spin, my son, and so must you, and, ecod! we'll have a time of it. I can scarce believe that it is you at all, lad. But it's just the sort of a thing I might expect would happen on a cruise like the one we've had since leaving Buzzard's Bay."
"Well, I have had some adventures myself, Plummer," I said. "And in the very first place, I owe you a debt of gratitude for the loan of the clothes and cap, my man."