True Blue stood up and peered earnestly through the obscurity.
“There she is, lads!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Starboard a little—that will do; we will board under her quarter. Stand by to hook on. Second division, do not leave the boat till we have gained a footing on the deck. Now, lads, follow me.”
True Blue expected when he leaped down to find himself on the deck, with his arms free to use his cutlass with advantage. Instead of that, he discovered that he had fallen into a net spread out over the quarter to dry. Here he could neither stand nor use his weapon, and in this position a Frenchman thrust a pike towards him, which wounded him in the thigh. Happily he got his cutlass sufficiently at liberty to cut the net. Then he dropped once more into the boat, into which he found that Tim Fid and the rest of the men had been thrust back, several severely wounded.
It would never do, however, thus to give up the enterprise; so, in a low voice telling the men to haul the boat farther ahead, he once more sprang up over the brig’s bulwarks. Most of the Frenchmen, fancying that the attacking boat was still there, had rushed aft.
The clash of British cutlasses, and the flash of pistols in the waist, quickly brought them back again. True Blue, Fid, and two or three more stood on the bulwarks, bravely attempting to make good their footing; but one after the other, and as many more as came up, were hurled back headlong, some into the water, and others into the boat, till True Blue stood by himself, opposed to the whole French crew.
Undaunted even then he kept them at bay with his rapidly whirling cutlass, till those who had fallen overboard had had time to climb into the boat; then he shouted, “All hands aboard the French brig!”
“Ay, ay,” was the answer, “we’ll be with you, bo’sun. True Blue for ever! Hurrah!”
Once more the undaunted seamen, in spite of cuts and slashes, and broken heads, were climbing up the brig’s sides. Fid was the first who joined True Blue, in time to save him from an awkward thrust of a boarding-pike; and, dragging it out of the hands of the Frenchman who held it, he leaped with it down on the deck. A few sweeps of True Blue’s cutlass cleared a space sufficient to enable more of his party to join him; and these driving the Frenchmen still farther back, all the boat’s crew at last gained the brig’s deck. The Frenchmen now fought more fiercely than before, and muskets and pistols and pikes were opposed to the British cutlasses; but the weapons of cold steel proved the most effective.
On the British went. Some of the enemy jumped overboard, the rest leaped into the cabins, or threw down their weapons and cried for quarter. The after part of the vessel was gained. A group on the forecastle still held out. Another furious charge was made. Just then loud huzzas announced the arrival of the other two boats, and Harry Hartland and Tom Marline, with their followers, climbing up the sides, quickly cleared the forecastle.
The Frenchmen who had escaped below were ordered to be quiet, and sentries, with muskets pointed down, were stationed to keep them so.