Up started from the gorse bushes a fresh couple of ruffians, the one a long, lean, lanky fellow in corduroy breeches and an old rug-coat, that had rather the air of a highwayman than of a son of the sea; the other a little, pimply-faced rogue in loose jacket and slops, who carried a pipe in his mouth, and a bludgeon in one hand. This latter uttered a savage oath on perceiving who it was that they were to attack. “’Tis the chief, the captain. Let’s cut his throat and carry him out, and hang him to’s own bowsprit, mates!” cried he, in a hoarse rasping voice, as he swung his bludgeon round his head and dashed up the slope after his comrades. “Ay, that will we, and serve him well for his devotion to’s duty,” sang out the burly giant who led the attack. “Have at ’un! Slash at ’un, Robin!” piped out the lean man, in a thin high voice that had a tone of unspeakable savagery in it. Meanwhile, the lad, blinded by the blood that flowed from the wound in his head, had staggered aside, out of the way of Tregenna and his new assailants. On they all came, quickly, eagerly, thirsting for revenge on the man who was, they considered, the leading spirit in the crusade carried on against their nefarious enterprises. But Tregenna did not flinch. He had the advantage of the ground, and his own men were within call. Planting his feet firmly in the soil, and grasping his sword, to which he chose rather to trust than to his pistol, he shouted to his men in the bushes below, and dealt a swashing blow at the burly giant, whom he guessed to be the redoubtable “Robin Cursemother,” of whose exploits he had heard. Robin parried the blow with his cutlass, while the small man with the bludgeon, whom they addressed as Bill, came to his assistance with a swinging blow, which would have felled the lieutenant to the earth had he not sprung aside just in time to avoid the full force of it. At the same moment the tall, thin man, whom they called “Jack,” aimed at him a blow, with the butt-end of the huge horse-pistol he carried in his belt, which made Tregenna reel. Luckily for him, his own men had by this time seen him and recognized his peril. His arrival had made the numbers on both sides more equal; and the revenue-men, who had been getting the worst of it, took heart from the courageous stand he was making single-handed against the smugglers, and, racing up the slope in the rear of the assailants, diverted their attack. There ensued a short, sharp hand-to-hand conflict, in which the lieutenant found himself face to face with a fresh opponent in that very “Ben the Blast” whom he had met in such strange circumstances in front of the Frigate at Hurst some days before. Ben came up with the last batch, panting, roaring like a bull, his face and hands dyed with blood, his teeth set hard, and his eyes blood-shot and aflame. “The damned lubber that I caught with Ann! I’ll settle him! Let me but get at him!” said he, furiously, as he came up.