Three times the Earl of Bellamont sheathed his sword in the breasts of as many of these ferocious beings and cast them backward dead into the sea, and as a fourth, who had thrown himself bodily upon the quarter-deck, made a tremendous stroke at him with his yataghan, he blew out his brains with a pistol. Everywhere, in their first daring attempt to board them, were they encountered with equal resolution and success, and of the twenty pirates that by some means or other succeeded in reaching the brig, not one retained a foothold on her decks--every individual of them being either slain outright, or hurled maimed into the water, where several swam about amid dark spots of blood, lifting their handless limbs, and in vain calling to their comrades to take them on board. The fate of these checked for a moment the ardour of the remainder, and they waited till the vessels should come together before making a second attempt.
The pirate, who had some time before dropped his lugsails, to prevent his shooting past the yacht, towards which the waves were slowly urging him, was now lifted and dashed with great violence against it, striking her on her quarter, carrying away her bulwarks, and opening her planks in several places.
"Throw yourselves into her now," shouted the pirate chief, leaping forward and waving his cutlass. "Flesh your blades in their carcasses! Give no quarter to beards--but spare bright eyes! Board! board! clamber over each other's backs--press on, press on! Follow your young leader. He will shame the best of ye!"
Like a crew of demons, yelling and shouting menaces of death, mingled with horrible execrations and oaths of vengeance for their slaughtered comrades, they obeyed the energetic and sanguinary orders of their chief. They were headed by the pirate's first lieutenant and a youth with long fair hair, which, in the light of the moon, shone like silver, who, with strange recklessness of life, cast himself from the bows as they approached the side of the yacht, and fell feet foremost into the midst of a grove of sharp steel, amid a shower of balls, that, while they told in the bodies of his followers, seemed to pass him as if he carried a charmed life. The old pirate captain himself headed another party near the stern of his vessel, which was slowly swinging round towards the yacht's bows, apparently for the purpose, when it should come in contact, of boarding on the forecastle. Here stood Edwards the lieutenant, with a force of fifteen men to oppose him; while midships, and near the companion-way, Mark was stationed at the head of a third of the yacht's crew, and, acting as a reserve, was prepared to throw in the weight of his numbers as should be required, either on the forecastle or the quarter-deck, at which latter point, at the head of an equal number, stood the captain, supported by the earl's good blade, ready to repel the attempt to board from the bows of the pirate.