His eye caught the splashes of the guard boat’s oars, more noticeable than ever with the crew pulling wildly as they paid attention to the din on shore instead of to their own business. The barge shot silently and unnoticeable towards it. She was only fifty yards from the guard boat when someone at last caught sight of her.

“Qui va là!” cried someone, sharply, but before any answer could be expected the barge came crashing up against the guard boat’s side, as Hornblower dragged the tiller round.

His quick order had got the oars in a second before the collision, while the impact of the barge swept the oars of the guard boat away, tumbling half her crew in a tangle into the bottom of the boat. Hornblower’s sword was out, and at the instant of contact he leaped madly from the barge to the guard boat, choking with excitement and nervousness as he did so. He landed with both feet on someone in the stern, trod him down, and miraculously kept his own footing. There was a white face visible down by his knee, and he kicked at it, wildly, felt a jar up his leg as the kick went home, and at the same moment he cut with all his strength at another head before him. He felt the sword bite into bone; the boat rolled frightfully under him as more of the barge’s crew came tumbling into the guard boat. Someone was heaving himself upright before him—someone with a black gash of a moustache across his face in the starlight, and therefore no Englishman. Hornblower lunged fiercely as he reeled in the rocking boat, and he and his opponent came down together upon the men under their feet. When he scrambled up the struggle was over, without a shot being fired. The guard boat’s crew was dead, or overboard, or knocked unconscious. Hornblower felt his neck and his wrist wet and sticky—with blood, presumably, but he did not have time to think about that.

“Into the barge, men,” he said. “Give way.”

The whole fight had hardly taken more than a few seconds. At the batteries the racket of the attack was still continuing, and even as the barge pushed away from the derelict guard boat there came a sudden splutter of musketry fire from higher up the bay. The two cutters had reached the anchored ship without impediment, rowing, as Hornblower’s orders had dictated, past the two locked boats straight for her. With his hand on the tiller he set a course for the musket flashes. Apparently the cutters’ crews had not succeeded in carrying the ship at the first rush, for the sparkle of the firing stayed steady along the ship’s bulwark—she must have had her boarding nettings rigged and her crew fairly wide awake.

The child Longley at his side was leaping about in his seat with excitement.

“Sit still, boy,” growled Hornblower.

He put the tiller over and the barge swept under the ship’s stern towards the disengaged side of the ship.

“Oars!” hissed Hornblower. “Take hold, there, bowman. Now, all together, men, and give a cheer.”

It was a hard scramble up the side of the ship, and her boarding nettings were rigged, sure enough. Hornblower found foothold on the bulwark through the netting, swaying perilously, leaning far out over the water, for the nettings were rigged from the yardarms and sloped sharply outwards. He struggled in them like a fly in a web. Beside him he saw Longley, writhing similarly. The boy had his dirk between his teeth in the fashion he had heard about in sailors’ yarns. He looked so foolish hanging in the netting with that great clumsy weapon in his mouth that Hornblower giggled insanely on his insecure foothold. He snatched his sword from its sheath, clutching with the other hand, and slashed at the tarry cordage. The whole net was heaving and tossing as the barge’s crew wrenched at it; he was almost jerked from his hold.

But everyone around him was cheering madly. This surprise attack on the unguarded side must be shaking the nerve of the defenders trying to beat off the cutters’ crews. The fifty-guinea sword was of the finest steel and had a razor edge; it was cutting through strand after strand of the netting. Suddenly something parted with a rush. For one horrible second Hornblower lost his footing and nearly fell outwards, but with a convulsive effort he recovered and swung himself forward, falling through the net on his hands and knees, the sword clattering on the deck before him. A Frenchman was rushing at him; his eye caught a glimpse of the steel head of a levelled pike. He snatched hold of the shaft, twisting on to his back, guiding the weapon clear. The Frenchman’s knee crashed into the back of his head, and his neck was badly wrenched as the Frenchman tumbled over on top of him. He kicked himself clear, found his sword, miraculously, and stood to face the other dark shapes rushing at him.

A pistol banged off at his ear, half deafening him, and it seemed as if the whole mass of those attacking him melted away into nothing at the finish. Those others crossing the deck now were English; they were cheering.

“Mr. Crystal!”

“Sir!”

“Cut the cable. Is Mr. Hooker there?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Get aloft with your boat’s crew and set sail.”

There was no time for self congratulation yet. Boats might come dashing out from the shore with reinforcements for the ship’s crew; and Rayner and Gerard might be repulsed by the garrisons of the batteries so that he would have to run the gauntlet of the guns.

“Brown!”

“Sir!”

“Send up that rocket.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The rocket which Brown had brought with him at Hornblower’s orders was to be the signal to the landing parties that the ship was taken. And there was a decided breath of air coming off the land which would carry the ship out of the bay; Hornblower had counted on that—after the scorching heat of the day a land breeze was only to be expected.

“Cable’s parted, sir!” hailed Crystal from forward.

Hooker had loosed the main topsail, and the ship was already gathering sternway.

“Hands to the braces, there, barge’s crew, first cutter’s crew. Benskin! Ledly! Take the wheel. Hard a-starboard.”

Brown’s flint and steel were clicking and flashing as he crouched on the deck. The rocket rose in an upward torrent of sparks and burst high above into stars. As the fore stay sail was set the ship’s head came round, and as she steadied on her course down the bay with the wind abaft the moon cleared the horizon right ahead—a gibbous, waning moon, giving just enough light for Hornblower to be able to con the ship easily out of the bay between the batteries. Hornblower could hear whistles blowing, piercing the sound of the musketry which was still popping round the batteries. Rayner and Gerard were calling off their men now.

Two splashes overside indicated that a couple of the ship’s crew were swimming for the shore rather than face captivity. It had been a well-timed and successful operation.