"Throw the grapnels!" shouted Captain Avery. "Haul, now! All aboard! Fore and aft, and amidships! Give it to 'em!" Down he went the next instant, flat upon the deck of the English ship, as he sprang over her bulwark. Down at his side fell the British sailor by whose cutlass he had fallen, and over both of them sprang Guert Ten Eyck with Up-na-tan and Coco reaching out to hold him back and get in before him. "I hit him!" shouted Guert, fiercely. "Forward! Down with 'em! The ship is ours!" Right here, amidships, the English crew had supposed to be the strength of their assailants and they had rushed desperately to meet it. They had not heard, however, the last command of Captain Avery, and his fore and aft boarding parties went over almost unopposed. "We are surrounded!" exclaimed the British captain, "They are four to one! Hold hands, Americans! We surrender!" It was time for him to do so, for fully a third of his crew were already down. They had been completely surprised as well as outnumbered. "Ugh!" exclaimed Up-na-tan, as he lowered his pike and turned suddenly toward Guert. "Boy hurt?" "Coco catch him!" said the old black man, eagerly, as Guert sank upon the deck. "Saw lobster cut him!" "Never mind me!" yelled Guert. "See how Captain Avery is! Look at the cut in his head!" "Wors'n that!" came hoarsely from first mate Morgan, as he bent above the fallen captain. "Taber, take charge of all for a moment! Lyme Avery is dead! Shot through the heart! Send the prisoners below. Look out for the wounded. All hands clear ship! Both ships! Make sail at once! I'm in command of the _Noank_. Taber'll take this one." The second mate was a Groton man, a grim old salt who had sailed in many seas. He was a good man to lean on in such an emergency, and he rattled out his orders while the men secured the prisoners. Morgan slowly stood erect as the English commander came toward him. "You are the American captain, sir? I know what your ship is. Mine is the _Lynx_, British privateer, Captain Ellis. We were on the lookout for you, or we thought we were." "I'm Captain Morgan, now Lyme Avery is dead," was the somewhat sadly spoken reply. "How is it that you're so short-handed?" "We had only forty able men left, all told," said Ellis. "Thirteen more sick or wounded. All the rest away in prizes or taken out of us by the reg'lar men-o'-war. The prizes and the press-gangs turned us over to you, sir. We took a Baltimore lugger, a bark from Philadelphia, two schooners from Boston, and one from Providence. We'd done right well, so far. You must ha' made a prime run, yourself." He was evidently a privateersman all over, and his view of the matter was that he had only met with a disaster in the regular line of his business. Morgan's thoughts were running in another direction. "Your armament's heavier than ours," he said, after a sharp survey. "Lyme was right, poor fellow! Our only chance was to board."