"Now is our time!--into her, boarders!" roared Dacres, leaping upon the pirate's forecastle deck.
But the order was useless--they were already hard on his track. A close and desperate struggle now took place. Pistols cracked, sabres gleamed, and deadly blows were dealt on either side, till a rampart of the slain and wounded was raised high between the furious combatants. Gloomy and dark as an arch-fiend, the pirate leader raged among his men, urging them on with threats and curses, in a voice of thunder, and sweeping down all opposition before his dripping blade. But Dacres, backed by his well-trained boarders, received them on the points of their pikes, with a coolness and bravery that made them recoil upon each other, like surges from a rock-ribbed coast. Thus the fight continued with various success, till the attention of the bucaneers was arrested by an unearthly shout in the rear, and the tall figure of Percy was seen, laying about him with whirlwind impetuosity, his long, untrimmed hair flying wildly in the commotion of the atmosphere, his features working with the madness that controlled him, and his dilated eyes flashing with a fierce, unnatural fire upon his opponents. All quailed before him. Wherever his merciless arm fell there was an instant vacancy. Although a score of cutlasses were glancing, meteor-like, around his person, as if by a spell, he remained uninjured. At length his eye detected the pirate leader. Dashing aside all before him, with one bound he was at his side. The fierce chief started in amazement at the sight of him whom he supposed many a league from the spot, if not dead, but quickly recovered his stern and gloomy bearing.
"Ask the sharks!" replied the captain, lunging at him with his sabre.
These were his last words. Percy, quick as thought, drew a pistol from his belt and fired into his face! He fell heavily to the deck, and the combatants closed around him, as tempest-waves close over a foundering ship!
The pirates, now that their leader was slain, fought with less spirit, and the victory was soon decided in our favor. Sooth to say, it was dearly earned; and many who sought the battle with a quickened pulse, and eager for the strife, were that evening consigned to the waves. Of all the pirate's crew, consisting of nearly a hundred men, but thirteen remained unharmed. Heavens!--what a ghastly spectacle her decks presented! Fifty stalwart forms lay there, stiffened in death, or writhing in the agony of their deep wounds, severed and mangled in every way imaginable; and so slippery was the main deck that we could hardly cross it, while the sea all around was died with the red waters of life, that gushed in a continuous stream from her scuppers.