"What a fool!" I said to myself, and crept in closer to the mast, for the voices below ceased, and two pistol-bullets came whistling through the rigging. Then there was a sharp whispering, and a couple more shots were fired; but I did not move, for it would have been like directing them where to aim. Then came Van's voice, as he shouted: "Fetch him down!" And I knew from the way in which the rigging trembled, that some of the enemy were coming up the shrouds to leeward and windward too. "Hunt him overboard, if he won't give in," shouted Van, and I set my teeth as I heard him; but there was no time to spare, and feeling about for a sheet, I got hold of it, meaning to swing myself out clear, and hang quite still, while they passed aloft, and then try for some hiding-place where I could gain the deck. I held on tight for a moment, and listened; and then in the darkness I could hear some one coming nearer and nearer, when, letting go with my feet, I swung gently off, and the next instant brushed up against something, when my heart gave a great bound, for I had found the way to get down to them in the cabin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STORY TWO, CHAPTER SIX. "It may come to a fight though, after all, and a prick will keep some of them at a distance," I says to myself, and getting my legs well round the sheet, I got hold of my knife, and opened it with my teeth, before making use of the chance that had shown itself. Perhaps it isn't every one who knows what a wind-sail is, so I'll tell you; it's a contrivance like a great canvas stocking, six or seven feet round, and twenty or thirty long and by letting one end of this hang down through the cabin-hatch or skylight, and having the other bowsed up in the rigging, you have like a great open pipe bringing you down a reg'lar stream of cool air in the hot weather. Now it was just against the top end of this that I had brushed; and as it seemed to me all I had to do was to slip in, check myself all I could, and then go down with a run amongst friends, where, if not safe, I should certainly share their fate, whatever it might be, besides, perhaps, being of some use. Fortunately, I had the rope, and hauling myself up a bit, after two or three tries, I got my legs in, lowered away quickly, and came down pretty smartly, not, as I meant, in the chief cabin, but upon the deck, where I was now struggling to get loose, like a monkey in a biscuit-bag, for they had done what I had not reckoned upon, dragged up the end of the wind-sail, and shut down the cabin skylight, most likely when I heard the shots and breaking glass.