down the captain, and the tide of
sea-rovers rushed at and over the little handful of defenders in an
overwhelming flood. There was no need of the plank this time. Every man
fell fighting and died sword in hand. To the two young prisoners,
already sickened with the sight of blood, this wholesale murder of a
band of gallant seamen came as a revolting climax. They stared at each
other, white-faced as they thought of the fate that threatened them and
all honest men who fell into such ruthless hands. It was Bob's first
sight of a hand-to-hand sea-battle, and as the last merchant sailor went
down under the howling pack he fainted and tumbled into Jeremy's arms.
When he came to his senses again the Yankee boy had propped him up
behind the companion and was rubbing him vigorously. "I know how you
feel," he said in answer to Bob's stammered apology. "It's all right and
you've no call to be ashamed. I came near it myself." The Delaware lad,
who had been almost as distressed at being guilty of swooning as at the
pillage of the merchant sloop, felt a vast relief when he heard Jeremy's
words, and quickly got upon his feet once more.

The pirates had cleared the enemy's deck of bodies and blood and now
were taking an inventory of the sloop's cargo, if the shouts that came
from her hold meant anything. She was a little larger than the _James_
in length and beam, but had carried no armament other than the now
damaged stern-chaser. The white letters at her stern declared her the
_Fortune_ of New Castle. From what Captain Bonnet said to his
sailing-master as they returned over the rail, Jeremy gathered that she
had been in light cargo and was not as rich a prize as the _Francis_.

The latter ship had now come up and was standing off and on waiting for
orders. Bonnet had lost two men killed and several hurt in the fight, so
that the crew of the _Royal James_, without the prize crew on board the
_Francis_, now numbered scarce a dozen able-bodied men. The question of
manning the newly captured sloop was finally settled by transferring to
her George Dunkin and his seven seamen. Bonnet freed the men of the
_Francis_ who had been in chains, and set them to work their own ship
under command of Herriot and another pirate. He undertook to sail the
_James_ himself, for by this time he was really an able skipper, despite
the fact that he had taken to the sea so late in life. As the crew of
the _Francis_ lined up before going aboard, the notorious