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 weap