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Updated: June 18, 2025
I'll fix him; and with that, and a heavy expletive in regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard, and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever."
The Americans were now at close quarters and able to do their best work, and so dreadful was it that fifteen minutes later a white handkerchief was waved at the end of a boarding-pike on one of the boats as a signal of surrender. Firing ceased, and in the smoke and confusion two of the enemy's boats darted away in an attempt to escape; but they were followed and brought back.
Indeed, the chances seemed to be a hundred to one against the lieutenant, who could handle with terrible effect a cutlass or a boarding-pike, but was almost a stranger to a weapon, to excel in the use of which, a man must be as loose in the joints as a posture maker, and as light in the heels as a dancing master.
As many of Romero's vessels as could be grappled within the narrow estuary found themselves locked in close embrace with their enemies. A murderous hand-to-hand conflict succeeded. Battle-axe, boarding-pike, pistol, and dagger were the weapons. Every man who yielded himself a prisoner was instantly stabbed and tossed into the sea by the remorseless Zealanders.
He scrambled up and caught a boarding-pike from the deck as he did so. The pirate followed, hacking at him with his cutlass, and for seconds that seemed like hours the boy fought for his life, parrying one stroke after another, till the pike shaft was broken by the blows, and he was left weaponless.
The ships of both services were sailing ships. Both, as a rule, went armed. Hence, not only was the merchant sailor an able seaman, he was also trained in the handling of great guns, and in the use of the cutlass, the musket and the boarding-pike.
The man paused bewildered, looked all round him, looked at the springing grain, then across at some trees, then up at the sky, and satisfied at last by those observations that the world at large had not undergone a miracle in the last fifteen minutes, resolutely resumed his advance; the pitchfork, like a boarding-pike, now aimed full at the breast of the object.
As many of Romero's vessels as could be grappled within the narrow estuary found themselves locked in close embrace with their enemies. A murderous hand-to-hand conflict succeeded. Battle-axe, boarding-pike, pistol, and dagger were the weapons. Every man who yielded himself a prisoner was instantly stabbed and tossed into the sea by the remorseless Zealanders.
That night, Marble and myself consulted together on the aspect of things or, as he expressed it, "we generalized over our prospects." Monsieur Le Compte had done one thing which duty required of him. He did not leave us a kernel of the gunpowder belonging to either ship; nor could we find a boarding-pike, cutlass, or weapon of any sort, except the officers' pistols.
In a brief time it was then near three o'clock a white flag, at the end of a boarding-pike, fluttered over a British deck. D'ri, who had been sitting awhile, was now up and cheering as he waved his crownless hat. He had lent his flag, and, in the flurry, some one dropped it overboard. D'ri saw it fall, and before we could stop him he had leaped into the sea.
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