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When day broke not ten unwounded Englishmen remained. The pikes were broken. The powder was spent. The whole deck was a wild entanglement of masts, spars, sails, and rigging. The undaunted survivors stood dumb as their silent cannon. But every Spanish hull in the whole encircling ring of death bore marks of the Revenge's rage.
The company on board The Revenge was gradually getting less and less; the Spanish ships, meanwhile, as they received a sufficient evidence of The Revenge's powers of destruction, dropped off, and their places were taken by others; and thus it happened that ere the morning fifteen ships had been engaged, and all were so little pleased with the entertainment provided that they were far more willing to listen to proposals for an honourable arrangement than to make any more assaults.
At the end of twenty minutes Job gave a satisfied grunt, maneuvered the cannon back and forth on its swivel base once or twice, and fired. Above the roar of the discharge the boys heard the screech of the whirling chainshot, and then in the Revenge's mainsail appeared a great gaping rent, through the tattered edges of which the wind passed unhindered.
They peered over the bows in silence. The longboat was close to the Revenge's quarter now, but there was no sign of the pirates along her rail. "Suppose they've got ashore?" asked Bob. "I don't see " "Down heads all!" It was Job's voice, and the boys together with many of the seamen ducked instinctively at the words.
They suddenly intervened in this second of time in which Patsy had sprung forward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The four men were now a tossing, arguing; violent group, one well-dressed man lecturing the Cuban, and the other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage, loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and maneuvering and struggling to get at him for revenge's sake.
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