Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe,and that was the signal.A knot of them made one rush of it,cutlass in hand,against the door;and at the same moment,the glass of the skylight was dashed in a thousand pieces,and a man leaped through and landed on the floor.Before he got his feet,I had clapped a pistol to his back,and might have shot him,too;only at the touch of him (and him alive)my whole flesh misgave me,and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have flown.
He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped,and when he felt the pistol,whipped straight round and laid hold of me,roaring out an oath;and at that either my courage came again,or I grew so much afraid as came to the same thing;for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the body.He gave the most horrible,ugly groan and fell to the floor.The foot of a second fellow,whose legs were dangling through the skylight,struck me at the same time upon the head;and at that I snatched another pistol and shot this one through the thigh,so that he slipped through and tumbled in a lump on his companion's body.There was no talk of missing,any more than there was time to aim;I clapped the muzzle to the very place and fired.
I might have stood and stared at them for long,but I heard Alan shout as if for help,and that brought me to my senses.
He had kept the door so long;but one of the seamen,while he was engaged with others,had run in under his guard and caught him about the body.Alan was dirking him with his left hand,but the fellow clung like a leech.Another had broken in and had his cutlass raised.The door was thronged with their faces.Ithought we were lost,and catching up my cutlass,fell on them in flank.
But I had not time to be of help.The wrestler dropped at last;and Alan,leaping back to get his distance,ran upon the others like a bull,roaring as he went.They broke before him like water,turning,and running,and falling one against another in their haste.The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver into the huddle of our fleeing enemies;and at every flash there came the scream of a man hurt.I was still thinking we were lost,when lo!they were all gone,and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheep-dog chases sheep.
Yet he was no sooner out than he was back again,being as cautious as he was brave;and meanwhile the seamen continued running and crying out as if he was still behind them;and we heard them tumble one upon another into the forecastle,and clap-to the hatch upon the top.
The round-house was like a shambles;three were dead inside,another lay in his death agony across the threshold;and there were Alan and I victorious and unhurt.