For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman.
Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist,
where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly,
and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for
all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back
across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the
pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the
desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there
was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail
and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish.
And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half
their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders,
urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate
resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his
head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men,
called for quarter.
Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end.
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