"Surrender!" shouts he. "Yes, I will surrender! Like this!" and stooping down behind his bows for a moment, he picks up what was a new-fangled sort of grenadoe--being a case bottle filled with powder and pieces of lead, iron slugs and shot, with a quick match in the mouth of it--and flings it aboard us. But in a minute one of my men, a lusty youth from North Berwick, named Fernon, stoops down, seizes on it, and flings it back into Alderly's ship, where it exploded amidst their yells and curses. "Now," said I, as at this moment our crafts touched, so that the whole channel was blocked, "over their bows, under the smoke, and among 'em. Pistols and cutlashes, my lads, will do the business." So over we did go, and soon found that we had a tough job before us. For though the men of the _Etoyle_ did only outnumber us by five--namely, four men and Alderly--we discovered ere long on what a dreadful mine we were standing. As I cut down one man, giving him a wound in the neck that nearly sever'd his throat as clean as if he had cut it with a razor, Cromby whispered in my ear-- "Sir, what shall we do? Down below stands a great negro over two barrels of powder, with a lighted slow match in his hand. 'Tis evident the instant we are victorious he will blow up the Snow." The sweat sprang out all over me as he said this, and, fighting hand to hand all as I was with now another pirate, I had to pause and deliberate. Then I said-- "If you cannot shoot him we must get back to our own vessel. Try if you can get a ball into him." And now I came against Alderly and rushed at him, when I saw him settle himself against the tackle of a gun, his hand over his heart. "So," I thought to myself, "he has got his death wound. He will fall dead in a moment. Let us see for ourselves." Amidst the smoke, therefore, and firing some shots below into the hold in the hopes of slaying the negro, we leapt back into our galliot, and then, before the crew of the _Etoyle_ knew what we were at, we had pushed ourselves off of them, and, catching a little of the current of the canal or river, got drifted down some fifty yards. And here, being safe from any explosion should it take place among the others, we gave them a broadside from our guns almost before they could know we had left them. But they answered not. We heard our balls crash into the sides of the Snow, we heard her timbers splitting and bursting, we even heard the shivering of a mast or yard, and its fall on the deck--but no reply was made. No ball came back crashing into us, no report echoed ours. All was still. "Let the smoke clear off," I said, "ere we fire again. Meanwhile, keep your guns loaded. Can it be that all are slain?"