"Sail ahead! Close on the larboard bow! Big three-master! No light showing!"
"All hands away!" roared Captain Avery. "Port your helm, there! Men! If it's an armed ship, it's too late to get away. We must grapple and board her, for life and death. Get the grapplings ready! Ship ahoy!"
The response was the report of a shotted gun and an angry shout:--
"We know you! Keep away, or we'll sink you! We can do it!"
"British trader," thought Captain Avery. "He's told us all we need to know. He's a strong one, I guess, and he could maul us badly. Our only chance is to close with him." Then he shouted to his crew:--
"Pikes and cutlasses! All hands be ready to follow me! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" came wildly back, and the three guns of the schooner's broadside, with the long eighteen, answered the stranger's challenge.
They were well enough directed, and so was the reply that came from half a dozen English pieces, but these, quite naturally at so short a range, were aimed too high. Down came both of the topmasts of the _Noank_, while her hull and ship's company were unhurt. She was a crippled craft in a moment, but she still had enough of headway to carry her alongside of her bulky antagonist before her guns could be reloaded.
"Throw the grapnels!" shouted Captain Avery. "Haul, now! All aboard! Fore and aft, and amidships! Give it to 'em!"
Down he went the next instant, flat upon the deck of the English ship, as he sprang over her bulwark. Down at his side fell the British sailor by whose cutlass he had fallen, and over both of them sprang Guert Ten Eyck with Up-na-tan and Coco reaching out to hold him back and get in before him.
"Forward! Down with 'em! The ship is ours!"
Right here, amidships, the English crew had supposed to be the strength of their assailants and they had rushed desperately to meet it. They had not heard, however, the last command of Captain Avery, and his fore and aft boarding parties went over almost unopposed.
"We are surrounded!" exclaimed the British captain, "They are four to one! Hold hands, Americans! We surrender!"
It was time for him to do so, for fully a third of his crew were already down. They had been completely surprised as well as outnumbered.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Up-na-tan, as he lowered his pike and turned suddenly toward Guert. "Boy hurt?"