He was stoutly
built, and he began at once to struggle. He was no coward, and
feeling for his knife, he drew it, and would have had it in me but
that I was quicker, and, with a desperate wrench, my hand still
over his mouth, half swung him round, and drove my dagger home.
He sank in my arms with a heaving sigh, and I laid him down,
still and dead, upon the deck. Then I whispered up my comrades, the
boy leading. As the last man came over, his pistol, stuck in his
belt, caught the ratlings of the shrouds, and it dropped upon the
deck. This gave the alarm, but I was at the companion-door on the
instant, as the first master came bounding up, sword showing, and
calling to his men, who swarmed after him. I fired; the bullet
travelled his spine, and he fell back stunned.
A dozen others came on. Some reached the deck and grappled with
my men. I never shall forget with what fiendish joy Clark fought
that night--those five terrible minutes. He was like some mad
devil, and by his imprecations I knew that he was avenging the
brutal death of his infant daughter some years before. He was armed
with a long knife, and I saw four men fall beneath it, while he
himself got but one bad cut. Of the Provincials, one fell wounded,
and the other brought down his man.
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