They now pulled swiftly but silently toward the lugger. Paul's heart bounded with hope, while Dick Stone, as cool as ice, but determined upon the event, waited for the command. They neared the vessel. "What boat's that?" was the sudden challenge from the lugger's deck, as their boat came within a couple of oars' length. "A friend!" shouted Léontine in French, and almost in the same instant a man in the bow of the boat caught hold of the mizzen shrouds of the lugger with his boat-hook, and held on. Paul seized a rope, and in one bound he was upon the lugger's deck, while Dick Stone followed like his shadow. To knock down the first man with a double-handed thrust with the barrel of his musket was the work of a moment, at the same instant Dick struck and felled a Frenchman who had rushed to the arm-chest. A shot was now fired by one of the French crew, and several men made a dash at the arm-rack, but Paul was there before them, and with the butt end of his musket he struck down the leader of the party. At this moment a loud shrill cry of alarm was heard from the shore. "_Ha, le sacre François_!" exclaimed Léontine, who had in the meantime attached the deserted boat to the lugger's stern. "_Ha, le misérable_!" she cried; "this is a return for my love!" Two or three shots were now fired by the French crew, but without other results than to alarm the ship-of-war; the drum beat to quarters, lights were seen at her ports; a tremendous flash was accompanied by the report of a cannon as she fired an alarm-gun; this was quickly answered by a shot from a battery above the town. The bells of the church and the prison rang wildly as shot after shot was fired from the battery, and the alarm spread like wild-fire throughout the port. In the meantime, while the fight had been hot upon the "Polly's" decks, Captain Dupuis, who had been asleep when the vessel was first boarded, now rushed up from the cabin, and meeting Paul he fired a pistol within a few feet of his chest; fortunately, at that moment Paul was in the act of raising his musket, and the ball lodged within the tough walnut stock; the next instant the weapon fell with a crash upon Dupuis's skull, who reeled backward, and stumbling against the low bulwarks, he fell overboard and sunk.