The Frenchmen came on helter-skelter. Not one of them imagined that they had any enemy more formidable than unarmed weaklings to deal with. Jack waited until they were within twenty yards; even in the dim starlight they could be seen distinctly enough. Then in a voice that rang clearly he gave the word "Fire!" The eleven rifles flashed; there were cries from the advancing Frenchmen; some of them, at any rate, must have been hit at this point-blank range. The head of the column was in confusion; men turned this way and that; they were apparently without leadership. While they halted and wavered another word of command was heard above their cries and the sound of shuffling feet: "Charge!" The sailors responded with a cheer; some thirty strong, they dashed forward as one man; and in a few seconds the enemy were in full flight, struck by one of those sudden panics to which even the best troops are liable in night operations. Jack also had his moment of alarm. Knowing the thoughtless impetuosity of the British sailor, he feared lest, with the enemy on the run, his men should forget everything else in the excitement of pursuit. But he had them soon in hand again. "Now to the boats!" he said, "and as quickly as you can." He had no difficulty in finding them. One of the sloops had already opened fire upon them; and the sound of oars in that direction showed that a boat, perhaps more than one, had been lowered, no doubt to pull in to the assistance of the soldiers. It was too dark for the fire of the sloop to be effective; Jack heard one or two shots strike the harbor wall. Here were the boats, a few yards from the beach. "Tumble in, men," said Jack. In a few seconds all were aboard. Already Jack in the foremost boat was steering for a black shape almost exactly ahead, which he believed to be the _Fury_. Scarcely was his craft well under way before he heard oars in that direction; the cutter also, it appeared, was sending a boat. "So much the better!" thought Jack. "There’ll be fewer men on deck to repel boarders." In less than a minute he saw the cutter’s boat ahead; it was turning, as if to regain the vessel—he wondered why. "Give way, men!" he cried, and from the boat behind came Babbage’s voice urging his crew: "Pull, shipmates; pull, my hearties; Mr. Hardy ain’t a-goin’ to do it all by his lone self!" And Jack heard Turley, somewhere in his own boat, mutter: "Bust yourself, old Artichokes, but we’ll be there first!"