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The bow-man of the first sheared through the mizzen-sheet with his cutlass, and boarding over the stern with three or four others, made a rush upon Dan'l as he let go the helm and turned to face them; while the second boat's crew opened with a dozen musket-shots, firing high at the sails and rigging.
Then, relieving Jenkins of his keys, he went through the forward door to the armroom, from which he removed, not only wrist and leg arms, but every cutlass and service revolver that the boat was stocked with, and a plentiful supply of ammunition.
On gaining the beach, the first thing that Barney did, after shaking himself like a huge Newfoundland dog, was to ascertain that his pistol and cutlass were safe; for, although the former could be of no use in its present condition, still, as he sagaciously remarked, "it was a good thing to have, for they might chance to git powder wan day or other, and the flint would make fire, anyhow."
While I was doing my best to keep him off with my cutlass, and he was eagerly watching an opportunity to come to closer quarters, Morton, locked in the grasp of a brawny antagonist, came driving directly between us, where they fell together, and lay rolling and struggling upon the ground at our feet.
With smiling faces they welcomed him a stranger from an unknown, outside world, with cutlass at waist and pistol in hand as a god; he left them a legacy of civilisation a hideous and cruel disease that swept through the amiable and unsuspicious race as an epidemic, and slew its thousands, and scaled with the hand of Death and Silence the eager life that had then filled the square houses of lava in many a town from the wave-beaten cliffs of Terano Kau to Ounipu in the west.
By Courtenay's advice, I procured from the armourer a ship's cutlass, to replace my almost useless dirk; and having carefully loaded and primed a very excellent pair of pistols with which my father had presented me, I thrust those useful articles into my belt and hastened on deck, just as the frigate was rounding to preparatory to anchoring.
"You fired the only shot heard to-night." "I'll not do it again. I didn't intend to. I don't know why I did it. Stick to my order." "See that you stick to it," the boy persisted. "I will. Use only your knives and cutlasses. The cutlass first always." The men began to move slowly forward. Brown called softly. "Just a minute. This dog of Wilkinson's is sure to bark. Don't stop to try to kill him.
Jack Joker, I'll lay my cutlass over your head," returned Merry, his voice now betraying a much greater sympathy in the sufferings of that abject race, who are still in some measure, but who formerly were much more, the butts of the unthinking and licentious among our low countrymen; "then ye can write your letter in red ink if ye will!"
And will, at the right moment, blow Lefebvre's gallery about his ears; sometimes bursts in upon him bodily with pistol and cutlass, or still worse, with explosive sulphur-balls, choke-pots and infinitudes of mal-odor instantaneously developed on Lefebvre, which mean withal, "You will have to begin again, Monsieur!" Enough to drive a Lefebvre out of his wits.
But the fight could not last much longer; his foes pressed so closely about him that Frobisher could no longer freely swing his cutlass, while the blood running down into his eyes half-blinded him. Out of the corner of one eye, however, he suddenly caught sight of a heap of cartridges that he had emptied on the ground for his men to help themselves from.
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