Uncle Moses had told me that there would certainly be a number of the buccaneers in the kitchen of the big house, where they took their supper and often sat far into the night drinking and dicing.  As we drew near, indeed, I heard through the sack that covered me (’twas very sticky and fraught with the cloying smell of sugar) loud sounds of merriment proceeding from the house.  Instead of driving past in the direction of the stables, the negro, obeying his instructions, pulled up his horses when the wagons came opposite the kitchen door.

I did not need Uncle Moses’ call to know that the moment had arrived.  Flinging off the sack that smothered us, Cludde and I sprang from the wagon, our companions doing likewise, and we burst headlong into the kitchen.

The merry sounds that we had heard were explained, but in an unforeseen way.  In the middle of the room sat Joe Punchard, tied to a chair.  Around him were half a dozen of Vetch’s villainous crew engaged in the pleasant sport of baiting their prisoner.  At the moment of our entrance they were rubbing the dregs of molasses into his red hair.  I learned afterwards from him that he had been seized on approaching the house, and, Vetch being absent at the time, had been carried into the kitchen for a preliminary inquisition.  They knew, doubtless on the information of the horseman I had seen, that he was a seaman from a king’s ship, and charged him with having come to spy on them, shrewdly hitting the mark, though they could hardly have believed in their accusation, seeing that he had approached quite openly with no companions but a brace of negroes.  He had suffered many indignities before we arrived, and he confessed to me that, though he had endured many a buffeting in the first years of his life at sea, he had never spent so distressful a couple of hours as those when the buccaneers put him to the question.

They were, I say, rubbing a filthy black semi-fluid into his hair at the moment when Cludde and I, with our negroes behind, made a sudden irruption into the kitchen.  We had our muskets with us, and seizing mine by the barrel, I brought the stock down on the head of the fellow nearest me, and he dropped heavily to the floor.  Springing past him, I cut Joe’s cords with my knife, and then turned to assist my companions in the fight that was raging.  The five buccaneers were sturdy villains, and after the first shock of surprise they were more than a match for Cludde and the negroes.  One had wrested the musket from Cludde’s hand, and now had his arms about his body, endeavoring to throw him.  The rest had drawn their hangers and were pressing hard upon the negroes, who made play with their knives, but were not equal to their opponents.

The entrance of Joe and myself into the fray, however, turned the tide of battle in our favor.  Joe had caught up the chair to which he had been bound, and wielded it like a flail, with every swing of it breaking a head or snapping an arm.  And my musket took a heavy toll.  The room rang with the din of battle—­the shouts of the men, the whoops of the negroes, the clashing of our weapons.  For half a minute it was perfect pandemonium; then finding the odds hopelessly against them, the two buccaneers who were not by this time on the floor dashed through the open door and fled, pursued by the negroes, who had no doubt long scores to pay off against them.