A hot wind rushed across his face and there was the taste of salt on his lips. His head hurt as though he had been struck; how they had come upon the French merchant was puzzlingly hazy in his mind, but there was no doubt in it as to what course of action to take. "Two shots from your long-gun across her bow, Mr. Treach!" Cutlass glanced briefly upward as his colors were raised quickly to the tip of the spanker-gaff; then he watched with satisfaction as the captain of the merchantman laid his mainyard aback and hove to. In a moment he could lower a boat, and this time there'd better be something more aboard to his liking than a cargo of salt! If it were coffee that he could sell at Rio Medias, he would not sink her, and if it were gold, he'd spare her captain's life. Cutlass had parted his lips to shout an order to lower a boat when he stopped his voice in his throat. He could not remember ever having given chase after sail but what the fleeing prize, upon sighting his black flag, would simply heave-to and surrender. But a hint of screened movement at the edge of the merchantman's middle deck had caught the corner of his eye-- "The Frenchman feigns surrender when his intention is to scuttle us!" Cutlass howled. "Mister Treach! Prepare a fitting answer to such an ill-planned deceit!" "Aye sir!" Cutlass watched his men as they scrambled to obey the first mate's order and brought their cannon to bear for a broadside. Some with laughs on their lips, all with sweat glistening from their scarred bodies, the gunners of the _Black Talon_ grasped the lanyards of their already-shotted guns even as the Frenchman opened fire. "Sink the lily-livered swine!" Cutlass bellowed, and drew his sword to flash it down in a glittering arc as the signal to fire. Half his starboard battery flamed in response to the merchantman's unsuccessful stratagem, then the other half as the first was reshotted. A ball from the Frenchman's battery tore away the brig's fore top gallantsail but Cutlass was warming to the fray and flashed the sword again in the burning rays of the hot West Indies sun. "The Frenchman shall strike his colors, Mr. Treach, and I'll shoot the man who fights as anything less than a devil!" he roared, a great laugh forming in his throat as the merchantman's volleys became increasingly ragged and her planking began to fly in splinters from beneath the very feet of her crew. For the Frenchman's cargo, whatever it was, Cutlass knew he cared but little. The _Talon's_ hold must be full to overflowing with jewels pillaged from the galleys of the Great Mogul--hard specie from the hulls of the East Indiamen--no, the plunder was for the satisfaction of the crew. But this--this, pure taste of revenge was for Robbin Cutlass! * * * * *