So I was there, ready for them, for though they had each in their hands a musketoon there was nought to fear. Ere they could lift them the brains would be out, they would be gone--but at this moment up came the sun as it had been promising, and in a moment all was flooded with light. And at the same moment they saw me and gave a shout at seeing my face close to them, and the two pistols to their ears. Poor wretches! all rebels and mutineers as they were, what gain had they in their evil? Ere the shout had finished they were dead outside the hut; even dead before the report had ceased to ring. Yet I had spoilt nothing by my haste, for as now the daylight poured over all I saw that the attack on the rock had begun, and, a moment afterwards, we had rushed pell mell from the hut to assist in taking the mutineers in the flank. And, now, I will write down exactly how our position was. On the rock there stood Phips with all his men by his side, on the plank were two or three of the mutineers with Brooks at their head, and smiling quite gay was Phips, as he called out. "And 'good morning' to you, Captain Brooks, as I hear you are to be to-day. My compliments to you, Captain Brooks, for a better frigate than the _Algier_----" "To, hell with your compliments," howled back Brooks, "and your scoffs. Yet we mean to have the ship, anyway; so come on. We are eighty to ten so you must yield." "Must I, indeed," says Phips, "well, we will see for that." Meanwhile I had perceived what was my office, and so, going back with the lieutenant and the master's mate--all unperceived by the mutineers, who had been quite engrossed wyth those on the rock, so that they saw not our sally forth--we dragged out the peteraroes and a little old Lombard we had, very good for throwing a big shot, and lighting our fuse we gave them a rousing broadside and did good execution. The Lombard crashed down four of them, while the peteraroes did great slaughter, and we gave them a volley from the musketoons, and so in amongst them with our cutlashes and very busy. Meantime Phips and his party were firing into them from the rock--though not at Brooks and those on the plank, which was shaking under their weight as they advanced; and now the captain shouted to him, "Come on, Captain Brooks, come on and take command of your ship. Come on, I say." And on Brooks went, hurling oaths like a tempest howling across the sea, and followed by the others; while, now and again, he yelled out, "We are betrayed; we are betrayed," and so got fair into the middle of the plank. And then he saw, but too late, the snare in which he had been taken. For it bent so under their weight and also gave so that, looking down, he saw it was all bored and pierced so as to be by now almost apart, and kept up only by the great gun-bolt.