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It was a wild chaos where axe and sword rose and
fell, while Englishman, Norman, and Italian staggered and reeled
on a deck which was cumbered with bodies and slippery with blood.
The clang of blows, the cries of the stricken, the short, deep
shout of the islanders, and the fierce whoops of the rovers, rose
together in a deafening tumult, while the breath of the panting
men went up in the wintry air like the smoke from a furnace. The
giant Tete-noire, towering above his fellows and clad from head
to foot in plate of proof, led on his boarders, waving a huge
mace in the air, with which he struck to the deck every man who
approached him. On the other side, Spade-beard, a dwarf in
height, but of great breadth of shoulder and length of arm, had
cut a road almost to the mast, with three-score Genoese men-at-arms
close at his heels. Between these two formidable assailants the
seamen were being slowly wedged more closely together, until they
stood back to back under the mast with the rovers raging upon
every side of them.
But help was close at hand.


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