aked so much mischief and found that
it could be discharged, despite the broken carriage. Joe Hawkridge and
Jack Cockrell blithely aided to swing and secure it with emergency
tackles and Joe exclaimed, with a chuckle:

"This dose is enough to surprise Blackbeard hisself. 'Tis an
ironmonger's shop I rammed down its throat."

The gun was laid on the largest cabin port-hole just as it framed the
ugly face of a pirate with a musket while another peered over his
shoulder. Joe shook the powder-horn into the touch-hole and the gunner
was ready with the match which he had lighted with his own flint and
steel. Boom, and the gun recoiled in a veil of smoke. Through the cabin
port-hole flew a deadly shower of spikes and bolts while the framework
around it was shattered to bits. It was a most unhealthy place for
pirates. They forsook it instantly. And the musketry fire slackened
elsewhere. It was to be inferred that there was painful consternation in
the cabin.

With boisterous mirth, the sailors deftly turned other guns to bear and
were careful not to let them get adrift. The muzzles had been well
stopped against wetting by the sea and with a little dry powder for the
priming, most of them could be served. They could not be reloaded for
dearth of ammunition but Captain Wellsby felt confident that one round
would suffice.

Methodically the gun-crews aimed and fired one gun after another,
watching the chance between the seas that broke aboard. The solid round
shot, at short range, ripped through the cabin walls and bulkheads and
buried themselves in the frames and timbers of the ship's stern. A good
gunner was never so happy as when he saw the white splinters fly in
showers and these zealous sailormen forgot they were knocking their own
ship to pieces. They were on the target, and this was good enough.

The beleaguered pirates made no more pretense of firing muskets or
defying the crew to dig them out. Their fort was an untenable position.
At this sport of playing bowls with round shot they were bound to lose.
Captain Wellsby sighted the last gun himself. It was a bronze culverin
of large bore, taken as a trophy from the stranded wreck of a Spanish
galleon. With a tremendous blast this formidable cannon spat out a
double-shotted load and the supports of the cabin roof were torn
asunder. The tottering beams collapsed. Half the structure fell in.

It was the signal for the sailors of the _Plymouth Adventure_ to charge
aft and f