Another came and
another; I saw them leap down singly. One of our new men whom we had signed
at Canton raised his cutlass and sliced down the third man to board us;
then they came on in an overwhelming stream.
Seeing that it would be suicide to attempt to maintain our ground, and that
we already were cut off from the party on the quarter-deck, we retreated
forward, fighting off the enemy as we went, and ten or a dozen of us took
our stand on the forecastle.
Kipping and Falk and the beach-combers they had gathered together had
conducted their campaign well. Some half of us were forward, half aft, so
that we could not fire on the boarders without danger of hitting our own
men. Davie Paine clubbed his musket and felled a strange white man, and
Neddie Benson went down with a bullet through his thigh; then the pirates
surged forward and almost around us. Before we realized what was happening,
we had been forced back away from Neddie and had retreated to the
knightheads. We saw a beast of a yellow ruffian stab Neddie with a kris,
then one of our own men saw a chance to dart back under the very feet of
our enemies and lay hold of Neddie's collar and drag him groaning up to us.
They came at us hotly, and we fought them off with pikes and cutlasses; but
we were breathing hard now and our arms ached and our feet slipped.
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