Chips the carpenter, who was nothing without making some improvement upon the acts of his fellows, made a dash at the officer leading the attacking boat on the starboard side, delivering a thrust with the bar he carried, which passed right through the large mesh of the net, catching the Spaniard in the chest and sending him backwards into the boat. "That's what I calls a Canterbury poke, dear boys," he cried. "Let 'em have it, my lads. The beggars look like so many flies in a spider's web; and we are the spiders." The shouting, yelling, and struggling did not last five minutes. Man after man succeeded the fallen, and then it was all over, the boats floating back with the current until they were checked by those in command, who ordered the oars out and the men to row. But it was some little time before the confusion on board each could be mastered, and the disabled portions of the crew drawn aside. "Well done, my lads!" cried the skipper. "Couldn't be better!" "Here," shouted the mate, "a couple of you up aloft and tighten that net up to the stay. Two more of you get a bit of signal-line and lace up those holes." "Ay, ay, sir!" came readily enough, and the men rushed to their duty. "Think that they have had enough of it?" said Fitz huskily. "Not they," replied Poole. "We shall hear directly what they have got to say." He had scarcely spoken before there was a fierce hail from one of the boats, whose commander shouted in Spanish to the skipper to surrender; and upon receiving a defiant reply in his own tongue, the officer roared-- "Surrender, you scum, or I'll order my men to fire; and as soon as you are my prisoners I'll hang you all, like the dogs you are." "Back with you to your ship, you idiot, before you get worse off," cried the captain sternly. "Dogs can bite, and when English dogs do, they hold on." "Surrender!" roared the officer again, "or I fire." "At the first shot from your boat," cried the skipper, "I'll give the order too; and my men from shelter can pick off yours much faster than yours from the open boat." "Insolent dog!" roared the officer, and raising a revolver he fired at the skipper, the bullet whistling just above his head. In an instant Poole's revolver was out, and without aiming he fired too in the direction of the boat. He fired again and again over the attacking party's heads, until the whole of the six chambers were empty, and with the effect of making the Republican sailors cease rowing, while their boats drifted with the current, rapidly increasing the distance. The order to fire from the boats did not come, but the second boat closed up to the first, and a loud and excited colloquy arose, there being evidently a difference of opinion between the leaders, one officer being for another attack; the second--so the skipper interpreted it from such of the words as he could catch--being for giving up and going back to the gunboat for advice.