"The odds was against us now, and we was catchin' it from two sides. But our blood was up, and we knew what to expect if they beat us. 'Twas the Hugli for every man Jack of us, and no mistake. There was no orders, every man for himself, with just enough room and no more to see the mounseers in front of him. Some of us--I was one of 'em--fixed the flints of the pirates for'ard, while the rest faced round and kept the others off. Then we went at 'em, and as they couldn't all get at us at the same time, owing to the deck being narrow, the odds was not so bad arter all. 'Twas now hand to hand, fist to fist, one for you and one for me; you found a Frenchman and stuck to him till you finished him off, or he finished you, as the case might be, in a manner of speakin'. Well, I found one lanky chap--he was number four that night--and all in ten minutes, as it were, I jabbed a pike at him, and missed, for it was hard to keep footin' on the wet deck, though the wet was not Hugli water; thick as it is, this was thicker--and he fired a pistol at me by way of thank you. I saw his figurehead in the flash, and I shan't forget it either, for he left me this to remember him by, though I didn't know it at the time." Here Bulger held up the iron hook that did duty for his left forearm. Then glancing cautiously around, he added in a whisper: "'Twas Diggle--or I'm a Dutchman. That was my fust meetin' with him. Of course, I'm in a way helpless now, being on the ship's books, and he in a manner of speakin' an orficer; but one of these days there'll be a reckonin', or my name en't Bulger." The boatswain brought down his fist with a resounding whack on the scuttle butt, threatening to stave in the top of the barrel. "And how did the fight end?" asked Desmond. "We drove 'em back bit by bit, and fairly wore 'em down. They weren't all sailormen, or we couldn't have done it, for they had the numbers; but an Englishman on his own ship is worth any two furriners--aye, half a dozen some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself--and at the last some of them turned tail and bolted back. The ship's boy, what was in the shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray! hooray!' That was all we wanted. We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in such a slap-bang go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there wasn't a Frenchman, a Dutchman, nor a Moor on board. They cut the grapnels and floated clear, and next mornin' we saw 'em on their beam ends on a sandbank a mile down the river. That's how I fust come across Mr. Diggle; I may be wrong, but I says it again: look out for squalls." For some days the wind held fair, and the ship being now in the main track of the trades, all promised well for a quick run to the Cape. But suddenly there was a change; a squall struck the vessel from the southwest. Captain Barker, catching sight of Desmond and a seaman near at hand, shouted: