to that
gray beard by your side whether he doesn't feel the same leap of pulse,
though his sinews have got stiff at the plough-tail, and his blood
sluggish with years since he smelt powder. And don't you remember, too,
Jack, that you felt a little of the same sort of thing that time you
"pitched in" and "licked" the hulking bully nearly twice your size, for
insulting the "school-marm," till he bellowed like a calf?

It seemed that more than an hour must have passed. Could they have
missed the ship, was the thought of all. This meant failure. There was
not the faintest ripple in the dead silence. But hark! there suddenly
boomed on the night the sweet muffled notes of a ship's bell, and with
it there was a dim flicker to starboard, as of a light shining through a
port-hole. Luck was with them, after all, and now the time was close at
hand. A denser black loomed against the darkness, vaguely outlining the
ship's hull, and the head-boat grated on the long hawser holding the
after anchor, thrown out to take up the swing of the ebb-tide. And hark
again! Through the cabin windows, suddenly thrown open as if for a
breath of fresh air, floated the sounds of laughter and singing, the
chorus of a Bacchanalian catch. Captain Askew and his subs, late as it
was, were still making merry with song.

"Gad! 'tis dark as Erebus," said one of the voices at the grating. "What
a night for a cutting-out party!"

A dozen strokes parted the boats to port and starboard, and they dashed
for the ship's sides. Up they swarmed into the chains and clambered
aboard, though not with the sailor's light foot. The watch on deck were
asleep or dozing in sheltered nooks. They sprang to arms with a shout,
but were speedily killed or disabled. A dozen lanterns flashed over the
decks as the crew tumbled up out of the fo'c's'le hatch, for all others
had been spiked down. Half naked, and scarcely awake, they yet fought
doggedly. The Captain and his officers trooped out of the cabin,
flustered with wine, but loaded to the muzzle with pluck, and fell to
with sword and pistol. Colonel Lockett had detailed a dozen picked men
with bags of slugs and powder-canisters to make ready and wheel around
fore and aft a couple of the deck-carronades. The assailants were in the
waist of the ship, and the fury of the assault had begun to drive
men-o'-war's men under hatch, for the ship was undermanned, and the crew
somewhat outnumbered. Scythe and pitchfork did their work wel