Of imminent danger—­danger close at hand—­I had no fear at all, trusting that the still night would carry any sound of mischief, and, moreover, that no boat could approach without being signalled, a hundred yards off, by the briming in the water.  So intolerably hot and breathless had the night become that I spoke to Billy to ease a stroke while I pulled off my shirt.  I had drawn it over my head and was slipping my arms clear of the sleeves, when I felt, or thought I felt, a light waft of wind on my right cheek—­the first breath of the gathering thunderstorm—­and turned up my face towards it.  At that instant I heard a short warning cry from somewhere by the helm; not a call of alarm, but just such a gasp as a man will utter when slapped on the shoulder at unawares from behind; then a patter of naked feet rushing aft; then a score of outcries blending into one wild yell as the whole boatload of Moors leapt and swarmed over the starboard bulwarks.

The tow-rope, tautening under the last stroke of our oars, had drawn the boat back in its recoil, and she now drifted close under the Gauntlet’s jibboom, which ran out upon a very short bowsprit.  I stood up, and reaching for a grip on the dolphin-striker, swung myself on to the bobstay and thence to the cap of the bowsprit, where I sat astride for a moment while Billy followed.  We were barefoot both and naked to the waist.  Cautiously as a pair of cats, we worked along the bowsprit to the foremast stay, at the foot of which the foresail lay loose and ready for hoisting.  With a fold of this I covered myself and peered along the pitch-dark deck.

No shot had been fired.  I could distinguish no sound of struggle, no English voice in all the din.  The ship seemed to be full only of yellings, rushings to-and-fro of feet, wild hammerings upon timber, solid and hollow:  and these pell-mell noises made the darkness, if not darker, at least more terribly confusing.

The cries abated a little; the noise of hammering increased, and at the same time grew persistent and regular, almost methodical.  I had no sooner guessed the meaning of this—­that the ruffians were fastening down the hatches on their prisoners—­than one of them, at the far end of the ship, either fetched or found a lantern, lit it, and stood it on the after-hatch.  Its rays glinted on the white teeth and eyeballs and dusky shining skins of a whole ring of Moors gathered around the hatchway and nailing all secure.

Now for the first time it came into my mind that these rovers spared to kill while there remained a chance of taking their prisoners alive; that their prey was ever the crew before the cargo; and that, as for the captured vessel, they usually scuttled and sank her if she drew too much water for their shallow harbours, or if (like the Gauntlet) she lacked the speed for their trade.  The chances were, then, that my father yet lived.  Yet how could I, naked and unarmed, reach to him or help him?