A shout went up in answer from the group on the hillock.

“You can come as friends, but not as enemies, cried Archie grandiloquently.  “The man who sets foot on this ship without permission dies like a dog.  We sail under the blood-red flag!” and Archie struck an attitude and pointed to the fragment of mother Fogarty’s own nailed to a lath and hanging limp over the rail.

“Hi! hi! hi!” yelled the gang in reply.  “Oh, ain’t he a beauty!  Look at de cotton waddin’ on his head!” (Archie’s cropped curls.) “Say, sissy, does yer mother know ye’re out?  Throw that ladder down; we’re comin’ up there—­don’t make no diff’rence whether we got yer permish or not—­and we’ll knock the stuffin’ out o’ ye if ye put up any job on us.  H’ist out that ladder!”

“Death and no quarter!” shouted back Archie, opening the big blade of Captain Holt’s pocket knife and grasping it firmly in his wee hand.  “We’ll defend this ship with the last drop of our blood!”

“Ye will, will ye!” retorted Scootsy.  “Come on, fellers—­go for ’em!  I’ll show ’em,” and he dodged under the sloop’s bow and sprang for the overhanging chains.

Tod had now clambered up from the hold.  Under his arm were two stout hickory saplings.  One he gave to Archie, the other he kept himself.

“Give them the shells first,” commanded Archie, dodging a beach pebble; “and when their hands come up over the rail let them have this,” and he waved the sapling over his head.  “Run, Tod,—­they’re trying to climb up behind.  I’ll take the bow.  Avast there, ye lubbers!”

With this Archie dropped to his knees and crouched close to the heel of the rotting bowsprit, out of the way of the flying missiles—­each boy’s pockets were loaded—­and looking cautiously over the side of the hulk, waited until Scootsy’s dirty fingers—­he was climbing the chain hand over hand, his feet resting on a boy below him—­came into view.

“Off there, or I’ll crack your fingers!”

“Crack and be—­”

Bang! went Archie’s hickory and down dropped the braggart, his oath lost in his cries.

“He smashed me fist!  He smashed me fist!  Oh!  Oh!” whined Scootsy, hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking its mate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yelling himself hoarse in his excitement.

The attacking party now drew off to the hillock for a council of war.  Only their heads could be seen —­their bodies lay hidden in the long grass of the dune.

Archie and Tod were now dancing about the deck in a delirium of delight—­calling out in true piratical terms, “We die, but we never surrender!” Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to the effect that he’d “knock the liver and lights out o’ the hull gang,” an expression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he never having cleaned a fish in his life.