red them
by scores.

It was in this extremity that M. de la Pailletine cast his eyes
around and found himself forced to do what Captain Barker from the
first had meant him to do. The four galleys that had started after
the convoy were by this time sweeping along on the full tide of
success. In another five minutes the pathway to the Thames would be
blocked and all the merchant vessels at their mercy.

M. de la Pailletine hoisted the flag of distress. He called them to
his help.

A wild hurrah broke out from the crew of the frigate. The order
meant their destruction: for how could the _Merry Maid_ contend
against six galleys? Yet they cheered, for they had guessed what
their captain had in his mind. And the little man's greenish eyes
sparkled as he heard.

"Good boys!" he said briefly, turning to his friend. "The convoy is
saved, my lad: and O! but Jemmy, you did it prettily!"

_V.--The Galley (in the hold)._

Let us go back for a minute or two to Tristram.

The oar at which he tugged was one of the starboard tier; and when
_L'Heureuse_ missed her stroke, as we have told, it went like a
sugar-stick, flinging him and his companions back across the bench.
Farther than this they could not fly, because the stout chains which
fastened them were but ten feet long. Tristram, indeed, was hurled
scarcely so far as the rest, for his seat was the inmost from the
gangway, and right against the galley's side; so that he got the
shortest swing of the oar.

They scrambled up just as the fire of grape-shot opened. And then
Tristram made an appalling discovery.

The hole through which their oar was worked had been split wider by
the crash; and now, looking out, he saw that it lay just opposite the
mouth of an English cannon. In this position they had been brought
up by the frigate's grappling-irons.

It took him but an instant to see also that the cannon, as it stared
him in the face, was loaded.

The two vessels, moreover, lay so close that by reaching up with his
hand he could have laid his hand on its muzzle.

It was a horrible moment. There were four Frenchmen and a Turk
ranged along the bench beside him. He looked into their faces. They
were ashen grey to the lips. No one could move to get out of the
way: the chains prevented that. The Huguenot was praying wildly.
Only the Turk preserved his composure, and even he had turned pale
under his bronze skin.

Somebody cried: "Lie flat!"

In a second