It was a race between them. The other boats were some distance astern, for two, being without oars, were being towed by the remaining two. In the two foremost boats the men were straining every nerve. They knew that their lives depended on success, and scarcely needed the encouraging words of Jack and the old bo’sun. They gained on the Frenchman; the three boats dashed almost together under the cutter’s counter; then there was a tussle. Rising in the boats the crews shouted and cheered and belabored their opponents, Jack’s men plying rolling-pins, gridirons, soup-ladles, frying-pans, shovels, candlesticks, with a hearty vigor that made them more formidable weapons than the Frenchmen’s cutlasses. In half a minute the Frenchmen, outnumbered and outfought, were hurled neck and crop out of their boats, and the English sailors were swarming up the side of the cutter. In the short fight the cutter’s crew had been unable to help their comrades; it was such a rough and tumble that they would as likely have hit a friend as a foe. But they gathered for a desperate resistance when the Englishmen poured on to the deck. Jack and his party boarded aft; Babbage’s men forward; but neither made easy progress, for the Frenchmen fought like tigers, rallying twice after momentary set-backs, and taking advantage of their superior numbers to press forward in the attempts to drive the boarders into the sea. The mêlée was at its fiercest when the arrival of the other boats turned the scale. Cheering British tars beset the gallant Frenchmen on all sides; man after man of the defenders fell, and in two minutes from the time when the last boat’s crew boarded, the cutter was once more in English hands. "Secure the Frenchmen!" shouted Jack, when the enemy surrendered and cried for quarter. He himself rushed aft and cut the cable; and while Turley and some others were collecting the Frenchmen’s weapons and escorting their prisoners below, a score of willing hands had run up the mainsail, jib and foresail. Grazing the side of the fishing smack to leeward as she gathered way, the _Fury_ moved out to sea. As she emerged from the shelter of the brig a round shot from one of the sloops struck her full amidships, and the other sloop was seen making sail in pursuit. "Any damage done?" sang out Jack. "Not a farden’s worth, sir," replied Turley. "Well above water-line." "Here’s another! Look out!" shouted Babbage. But the second shot whizzed harmlessly by; then the sloops and other vessels faded from sight; and the buoyant little cutter began to courtesy to the waves of the Channel, showing white-crested in the gloom. *CHAPTER XII* *THE CAPTURE OF THE *_*GLORIEUSE*_