Of this the fullest demonstration followed quickly.  The Frenchmen having recovered their wits at last, both ships swung broadside on, and concentrating upon the Arabella as the nearer and heavier and therefore more immediately dangerous of their two opponents, volleyed upon her jointly at almost the same moment.

Unlike the buccaneers, who had fired high to cripple their enemies above decks, the French fifed low to smash the hull of their assailant.  The Arabella rocked and staggered under that terrific hammering, although Pitt kept her headed towards the French so that she should offer the narrowest target.  For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then she plunged forward again, her beak-head in splinters, her forecastle smashed, and a gaping hole forward, that was only just above the water-line.  Indeed, to make her safe from bilging, Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors, and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.

Meanwhile, the Frenchmen going about, gave the like reception to the Elizabeth.  The Arabella, indifferently served by the wind, pressed forward to come to grips.  But before she could accomplish her object, the Victorieuse had loaded her starboard guns again, and pounded her advancing enemy with a second broadside at close quarters.  Amid the thunder of cannon, the rending of timbers, and the screams of maimed men, the half-necked Arabella plunged and reeled into the cloud of smoke that concealed her prey, and then from Hayton went up the cry that she was going down by the head.

Blood’s heart stood still.  And then in that very moment of his despair, the blue and gold flank of the Victorieuse loomed through the smoke.  But even as he caught that enheartening glimpse he perceived, too, how sluggish now was their advance, and how with every second it grew more sluggish.  They must sink before they reached her.

Thus, with an oath, opined the Dutch Admiral, and from Lord Willoughby there was a word of blame for Blood’s seamanship in having risked all upon this gambler’s throw of boarding.

“There was no other chance!” cried Blood, in broken-hearted frenzy.  “If ye say it was desperate and foolhardy, why, so it was; but the occasion and the means demanded nothing less.  I fail within an ace of victory.”

But they had not yet completely failed.  Hayton himself, and a score of sturdy rogues whom his whistle had summoned, were crouching for shelter amid the wreckage of the forecastle with grapnels ready.  Within seven or eight yards of the Victorieuse, when their way seemed spent, and their forward deck already awash under the eyes of the jeering, cheering Frenchmen, those men leapt up and forward, and hurled their grapnels across the chasm.  Of the four they flung, two reached the Frenchman’s decks, and fastened there.  Swift as thought itself, was then the action of those sturdy, experienced buccaneers.  Unhesitatingly all threw themselves upon the chain of one of those grapnels, neglecting the other, and heaved upon it with all their might to warp the ships together.  Blood, watching from his own quarter-deck, sent out his voice in a clarion call: