"Well, lads--" and the lieutenant set his cup down on the table, clapped his hands on his knees, laughed shortly and nervously once or twice, and looked round. "Well, lads, I have never seen the like. The captain went for them like a wild cat; one step on the rail and the next among them; and was gone like a stone into water"--and the lad clapped his hand on his thigh. "I saw one face slit up from chin to eye; and another split across like an apple; and then we were after him. The men were mad, too--what was left of us; and we poured up on to the decks and left the old _Seahorse_ to die. Well, we had our work before us--but it was no good. The dons could do nothing; I was after the captain as he went through the pack and came out just behind him; there were half a dozen of them down now; and the noise and the foreign oaths went up like smoke; and the captain himself was bleeding down one side of his face and grunting as he cut and stabbed; and I had had a knife through the arm; but he went up on to the poop; and as I followed, the Spaniards broke and threw down their arms--they saw 'twas no use, you see. When we reached the poop-stairs an officer in a blue coat came forward jabbering some jargon; but the captain would have no parley with him, but flung his dag clean into the man's face, and over he went backwards--with his damned high heels in the air." There was a sudden murmur of laughter from the room; Anthony glanced off the lieutenant's grinning ruddy face for a moment, and saw the rows of listening faces all wrinkled with mirth. "Well," went on the lad, "up went the captain, and I after him. Then there came across the deck, very slow and stately, the Spanish captain himself, in a fine laced coat and a plumed hat, and he was holding out his sword by the blade and bowed as we ran towards him, and began some damned foreign nonsense, with his _Señor_--but the captain would have none o' that, I tell you he was like Tom o' Bedlam now--so as the Señor grinned at him with his monkey face and bowed and wagged, the captain fetched him a slash across the cheek with his sword that cut up into his head; and that don went spinning across the poop like a morris-man and brought up against the rail, and then down he came," and the lad dashed his hand on his thigh again--"as dead as mutton." Again came a louder gust of laughter from the room. Anthony half rose in his chair, and then sat down again.