But even as he caught that enheartening glimpse he
perceived, too, how sluggish now was their advance, and how with
every second it grew more sluggish. They must sink before they
reached her.
Thus, with an oath, opined the Dutch Admiral, and from Lord
Willoughby there was a word of blame for Blood's seamanship in
having risked all upon this gambler's throw of boarding.
"There was no other chance!" cried Blood, in broken-hearted frenzy.
"If ye say it was desperate and foolhardy, why, so it was; but the
occasion and the means demanded nothing less. I fail within an
ace of victory."
But they had not yet completely failed. Hayton himself, and a
score of sturdy rogues whom his whistle had summoned, were
crouching for shelter amid the wreckage of the forecastle with
grapnels ready. Within seven or eight yards of the Victorieuse,
when their way seemed spent, and their forward deck already awash
under the eyes of the jeering, cheering Frenchmen, those men
leapt up and forward, and hurled their grapnels across the chasm.
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