ed impetus and lunged across the ship as an instrument
of fell destruction. It was more to be feared than an assault of armed
men.

The warning rumble of the iron wheels as they furrowed the planking was
heard by the pirates. They turned from their game of butchery and stood
frozen in their tracks for a frightened instant. Then they tried to flee
in all directions. Their tarry pigtails fairly stood on end. Well they
knew what it meant to have a gun break adrift in a heavy sea. Two or
three who had been badly hurt were unable to move fast enough. The gun
crunched over them and then seemed to pursue a limping pirate, veering
to overtake him as he fled. He was tossed against the bulwark like a
bundle of bloody rags.

The gun crashed into the stout timbers of the ship's side and they were
splintered like match-wood. It rebounded as the deck sloped sharply in
the next wallowing roll, and now this frenzied monster of wood and iron
seemed fairly to run amuck. It was inspired with a sinister
intelligence, resolved to wreak all the damage possible. The pinnace,
the water barrels, the coamings of the cargo hatches, were smashed to
fragments as the gun turned this way and that and went plunging in
search of victims.

[Illustration: THE BRAWN OF THESE LADS MADE THE PIKE A MATCH FOR A
PIRATE'S CUTLASS]

Left to themselves, the seamen of the _Plymouth Adventure_ would have
risked their lives to cast ropes about the gun and moor it fast. But now
they were quick to see that the tide had been turned in their favor. The
pirates were demoralized. Some were in the rigging, others atop the
bulwarks, and only the readiest and boldest, with Ned Rackham in the
lead, had an eye to the task in hand, which was to regain possession of
the ship.

And now the boatswain of the _Plymouth Adventure_, a rosy giant of a man
from South Devon, shouted to his comrades to follow him. They delayed
until the runaway cannon crashed into another gun, and then they broke
like sprinters from the mark and sped straight for the mainmast, seeking
the rack of boarding-pikes. They ran nimbly, as men used to swaying
decks, and compassed the distance in a few strides.

Ned Rackham perceived their purpose and tried to intercept but his few
staunch followers moved warily, expecting to see that insensate monster
of a gun bear down upon them. The swiftest of the merchant sailors laid
hands on the pikes and whirled to cover their shipmates, until all hands
could be ar