My boarding-axe was on the deck at my side; I seized it, and, in making a desperate effort to raise myself, I struck behind me, and by chance a furious blow, without doubt, reached my adversary, for my axe was stopped by a hard body, and the hand which held me slackened its hold at once. I was then able to straighten myself. Scarcely was I on my feet when the man with the black cowl, who had attacked me when I lowered Henry into the saloon, threw himself upon me. I was without arms. Having let my boarding-axe fall, we laid hold hand to hand, and an exciting struggle began. His mantle, with the cowl turned up, enveloped him almost entirely, and concealed his face. He twisted one of his legs strongly around mine, in order to throw me; then squeezing me in order to choke me, he attempted to lift me from the deck and throw me over the side of the schooner. If he was strong, I was no less so. The ardent desire to avenge Falmouth, the anger, and, shall I so call it? this puerility, the disgust of feeling the breath of this brigand on my cheek, gave me new strength. Disengaging one of my hands from both his powerful ones, I could fortunately take the pirate by the throat. There I felt the cord of a scapular. I twisted it around my hand and quickly gave it two or three turns. I probably was beginning to strangle my enemy, for I noticed that his embrace weakened, when, by a lucky chance, a motion of the boat made us both stumble. Already exhausted, the pirate fell, his back arched on the gunwale,--a last effort, and I was about to succeed, I was about to throw myself upon him with my whole weight, when he madly bit me in the face. Although at this instant several shots flashed a bright light, and the cowl of the pirate was a little loosened, I could not distinguish his features, for his face was covered with blood. Only in throwing me backward I saw that his teeth were singularly white, sharp, and separated. Hurling myself again upon him, I succeeded in lifting him from the deck, placing him lengthwise on the gunwale, and at last in throwing him over the railing of the yacht. But when he saw himself thus suspended above the sea, the pirate made a last effort, held with one hand to my neck, the other to my hair, and held me seized in this way, he outside the boat, and I within. I was seeking to disengage myself when I received a violent blow on the head. The hands of the man with the cowl relaxed, and I swooned. CHAPTER XXXIII THE DOCTOR Very irksome is the task which I have imposed upon myself. Here again is one of the phases of my life which I wish to be able to utterly efface from my memory,--one of those moments of terrible vertigo, during which-- But the hour of this fatal revelation will arrive, alas, too soon! Stunned by the blow which I had received, I swooned at the moment when the captain of the pirates fell into the sea. When I revived I was in bed in my chamber, my head and shoulder enveloped in bandages.