inish the business. They found pirates crawling from under the
wreckage. It was like a demolished ant-heap. In the smaller cabins and
other rooms far aft, which were more or less intact, some of the rascals
showed fight but they were remorselessly prodded out with pikes and
those unwounded were hustled forward to be thrown into the forecastle.
It was difficult to restrain the seamen from dealing them the death they
deserved but Captain Wellsby was no sea-butcher and he hoped to turn
them over to the colonial authorities to be hanged with due ceremony.

The badly hurt were laid in the forecastle bunks where the ship's
surgeon washed and bandaged them after he had cared for the injured men
of his own crew. Ned Rackham was still alive, conscious and defiant,
surviving a wound which would have been mortal in most cases. Whether he
lived or died was a matter of small concern to Captain Wellsby but he
ordered the surgeon to nurse him with special care.

The dead pirates were flung overboard but the bodies of seven brave
British seamen were wrapped in sailcloth to be committed to the deep on
the morrow, with a round shot at their feet and a prayer to speed their
souls. There were men enough to work the ship but she was in a
situation indescribably forlorn. It was possible to patch and shore the
cabin house and make a refuge, even to find place for the wretched women
who were lifted unharmed out of the lazarette. But the stout ship, her
mainmast gone by the board, the deck ravaged by that infernal catapult
of an errant gun, the hull pounded by the floating wreckage of spars,
would achieve a miracle should she see port again.

The combat with the pirates and their overthrow had been waged in the
last hour before the gray night closed over a somber sea. God's mercy
had caused the wind to fall and the waves to diminish in size else the
ship would have gone to the bottom ere dawn. Much water had washed down
into the hold through the broken cargo hatch and the gaps where the
runaway gun had torn other fittings away. The carpenter sounded the well
and solemnly stared at the wetted rod by the flicker of his horn
lantern. The ship was settling. It was his doleful surmise that she
leaked where the pounding spars overside had started the butts. It was
man the pumps to keep the old hooker afloat and Captain Wellsby ordered
his weary men to sway at the brakes, watch and watch.

Joe Hawkridge and Jack Cockrell, more fit for duty than the