Now the Gauntlet, as the reader will remember, sailed in ballast, and therefore carried herself pretty high in the water.  Moreover, our enemies ran in and grappled us just forward of her quarter, where she carried a movable panel in her bulwarks to give access to an accommodation ladder.  While Nat, Captain Pomery, Mr. Fett, and the two seamen ran to defend the other side, at a nod from my father I thrust this panel open, leapt back, and Mr. Badcock aiding, ran the little gun out, while my father depressed its muzzle over the boat.  In our excess of zeal we had nearly run her overboard; indeed, I believe that overboard she would have gone had not my father applied the red-hot iron in the nick of time.  The explosion that followed not only flung us staggering to right and left, but lifted her on its recoil clean out of her rickety carriage, and kicked her back and half-way across the deck.

Recovering myself, I gripped my musket and ran to the bulwarks.  A heave of the swell had lifted the boat up to receive our discharge, which must have burst point-blank upon her bottom boards; for I leaned over in bare time to see her settling down in a swirl beneath the feet of her crew, who, after vainly grabbing for hold at the Gauntlet’s sides, flung themselves forward and were swimming one and all in a sea already discoloured for some yards with blood.

My father called to me to fire.  I heard; but for the moment the dusky upturned faces with their bared teeth fascinated me.  They looked up at me like faces of wild beasts, neither pleading nor hating, and in response I merely stared.

A cry from the larboard bulwarks aroused me.  Three Moors, all naked to the waist, had actually gained the deck.  A fourth, with a long knife clenched between his teeth, stood steadying himself by the main rigging in the act to leap; and in the act of turning I saw Captain Pomery chop at his ankles with a cutlass and bring him down.  We made a rush on the others.  One my father clubbed senseless with the butt of his musket; another the two seamen turned and chased forward to the bows, where he leapt overboard; the third, after hesitating an instant, retreated, swung himself over the bulwarks, and dropped back into the boat.

But a second cry from Mr. Fett warned us that more were coming.  Mr. Fett had caught up a sack of stones, and was staggering with it to discharge it on our assailants when this fresh uprush brought him to a check.

“That fellow has more head than I gave him credit for,” panted my father.  “The gun, lad!  Quick, the gun!”

We ran to where the gun lay, and lifted it between us, straining under its weight; lurched with it to the side, heaved it up, and sent it over into the second boat with a crash.  Prompt on the crash came a yell, and we stared in each other’s faces, giddy with our triumph, as John Worthyvale came tottering out of the cook’s galley with two fresh red-hot handspikes.