Leaving Tom to take care of himself, Tim attacked the ascending sailors. With a rush and wild shouts, he banged the foremost over the head and sent him crashing down upon the others of the group. Then firing his musket at the crowd, he completed their route, and the whole party fled to the shelter of the forecastle.
"Here," Tom replied, coming from behind the cabin. "If I hadn't hit that fellow on the arm before he closed with me, and knocked his dirk out of his grasp, he might have put me out of the way."
"Where did ye put him, though?" asked Tim.
"Around here," Tom said, pointing to a recumbent figure on the deck, with a handkerchief in his mouth and his hands and feet tied. The sailor rolled with the rise and fall of the ship and seemed most uncomfortable.
"The captain gave me a hand," Tom explained, "or else I would never have finished tying him up.
"Better keep an eye out," cautioned the mate. "Looks to me like they were going to make another try for the ladders."
"All right," the boys replied, and exchanging an encouraging slap on the back, they took up their positions.
"Holler, if you want to be saved agin," instructed Tim.
But Tom did not reply, for when he crouched down and peered at the shadow of the deckhouse, where the group was, there was something about their attitude, as nearly as he could make out, that indicated preparations for a concerted attack.
The repulse of the last assault had angered the mutineers, and they were now determined at all costs to overcome the little group on the after deck, and deal with them as they had planned.
Meanwhile, the captain had been steadily holding the ship on the shore tack, and he figured that by daylight they would be in sight of land.
The boys had not long to wait before the rush began. With a shout, the crew dashed along the deck, faltered for a moment as the three defenders fired at them, and then came on.
The boys and the mate seized another musket each, and fired once more, this time in their opponents' very faces. But those behind pushed their frightened and wounded comrades aside and started up the ladders. The larger party made for Tom, while just enough to make things interesting surged up and down the ladder that Tim and the mate were guarding. Had one of them left to aid Tom, the other would probably have been overpowered. So Tom had his hands full, and although he kept the leaders from gaining the deck, he was slowly tiring from his exertions, and he knew that before long the mutineers would have him overpowered.