eir aim, and just as they got their hands on their
cutlasses they were both knocked over with well-planted blows in their
faces, and brought to the deck, at the same instant that Tim, to whom
the duty had been confided, closed down the hatch on the watch below.
The helmsman, on hearing the scuffle, was turning his head to see what
was the matter, when he found his arms pinioned by the captain and Owen.
On seeing this, Gerald ran forward to where Tim had concealed the rope.
He soon returned with a sufficient number of lengths to lash the arms
of Busson and the men, while Tim carried the rest of the rope to his
shipmates forward, who were not long securing the three Frenchmen. The
remaining four of the French crew, who had been aroused by the scuffle,
were now making desperate efforts to force their way up on deck, and one
on the top of the ladder had just succeeded in lifting up the hatch,
when Tim saw his head protruding above the combing.

"Bear a hand here, or shure the mounseers will be out of the trap," he
shouted, at the same time seizing a capstan-bar, which was close at
hand, and dealing a blow with it at the head of the Frenchman, who fell
stunned off the ladder, back upon his companions following at his heels.
Notwithstanding this, immediately they had recovered themselves they
again attempted to get up, and another man had succeeded in raising half
his body above the hatchway. Tim attacked him as he had done the first;
the man, however, who was a powerful fellow, grasped the capstan-bar,
and getting his knee on the combing was about to deal a blow at Tim
which would have felled him to the deck, when one of the English crew,
attracted by his cries, sprang to his assistance, and, wrenching the
weapon from the Frenchman's hands, struck him dead. Two more only had
now to be disposed of; they, still in ignorance of the fate of their
companions, sprang up the hatchway, and before they had time to gain
their feet were thrown down and secured. The man who had fallen below
was groaning heavily.

"He'll do no harm," observed Pat Casey.

"Arrah, don't be too shure of that," said Tim; "if he was to come to
life, he'd be after letting loose the others. It will be wiser to lash
him too; and unless the dead man is kilt entirely, I'd advise that we
prevent him from doing mischief."

Pat felt the Frenchman's head. "Shure, I never knew a man come to life
with a hole like this in his skull," he remarked, "but to make sh