leasing a three-foot handspike from its lashing beside the
gun-carriage, he awaited the next roll of the deck and deftly kicked
this handy weapon. It slid toward the forecastle and Jack Cockrell
stopped it with his foot.

There was no time for hesitation. Snatching up the iron-shod handspike,
Jack rushed straight at the forecastle door. Just then the ship lurched
far down and he was shot headlong, like falling off the roof of a house.
He had the momentum of a battering-ram. The sentry yelled and drew his
cutlass with a swiftness amazing in a sick man. His footing was unsteady
or Jack would have spitted himself on the point of the blade. As he went
crashing full-tilt into the man the impact was terrific. They went to
the deck together and the handspike spun out of Jack's grasp. There was
no need to swing it on this luckless pirate for his bald head smote a
plank with a thump which must have cracked it like an egg.

Not even pausing to dart after the cutlass which had clattered from the
lifeless fingers, Jack spun on his heel and wrenched at the heavy bar
across the forecastle door and felt it slide from the fastenings. He
tugged it clear and swung himself up to the roof to draw the bolts which
secured the hatch. Rusted in their sockets, they resisted him but he
spied a pulley-block within reach and used it as a hammer.

All this was a matter of seconds only. The pirates grouped amidships had
been waiting for Ned Rackham's word from aft and they were muddled by
this sudden shift of action. The other sentries stared in foolish
astonishment. The brief delay was enough to let Jack Cockrell free the
hatch. While he toiled furiously, several pistols and a musket were
snapped at him but the flint sparked on damp powder in the pans and only
one ball whistled by his head.

Out of the forecastle hatchway and through the door, the enraged sailors
of the _Plymouth Adventure_ came rocketing like an explosion. They
stumbled over each other, emerging head or feet first, blinking like
owls in the daylight but with vision good enough to serve their purpose.
Their goal was the nearest stand of boarding-pikes at the foot of the
mainmast.

But as they came surging on deck, they were not empty-handed. In the
forecastle was a bricked oven for warmth in winter and for cooking
kettles of soup. This they had torn to pieces and every man sallied
forth with a square, flat brick in each hand and more inside his shirt.
Those who were first to g