Huron's men were commercial seamen, not warriors, most of them had never swung a cutlass nor fired a pistol at another man before, and the difference was evident almost immediately.
For a minute or less the closely engaged mass of men swayed and churned like the meeting of two strong currents at the tidal line of the ocean, and then Black joke's sailors began to forge forward.
Up the Jokers! ' They sensed their advantage. Hammer and tongs, boys.
Give 'em heUV At only one point was the tide of British sailors checked, at the foot of Huron's mainmast two men stood almost shoulder to shoulder.
Tippoo seemed immovable on the solid foundation of those massive bared legs. Like a Buddha carved from solid rock, he spurned the press of men around him, and their ranks parted and drew back.
His loin-cloth was drawn up between his legs, and his smooth belly bulged over it, again as hard as mountain rock, with the deep cyclops eye of his navel in its centre.
The golden thread of his embroidered gilet sparkled in the sunlight, and he held his great round head low on his shoulders as he swung a double-bladed axe as easily as though it were a lady's parasol, and the axe hissed fiercely at every stroke and Black Joke's seamen gave him ground.
A pistol ball had nicked the scarred flesh of his bald head, and blood poured copiously from the shallow wound, turning his face to a glaring gory mask.
His wide toad's slit of a mouth opened as he laughed and shouted his contempt of the men who swarmed about him like pygmies about an ogre.
Beside him fought Mungo St. John. He had stripped off his blue jacket to free his sword arm, and his white linen shirt was open to the belt, the buttons torn from their threads by a clutching enemy hand. He had knotted a silk bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat from running into his eyes, but sweat poured down his naked chest, and had soaked through his shirt in patches.
He had a sword in his right hand, a weapon with a plain silver steel guard and pommel, and he cut and parried and thrust without a break in the rhythm of his movements.
He was unmarked, the droplets of thrown blood that stained the full sleeve of his white shirt and which had been diluted by his sweat to a dirty brown, were not his blood.
$St. John! ' Clinton called to him. They were both tall enough to look over the heads of the men between them, and they stared at each other for a moment.
Clinton's eyes were pate fanatical blue, and his lips white with fury. Mungo's expression was grave, thoughtful almost, and his gaze troubled, almost grieving, as though he knew he had lost his ship and that his life and the lives of most of his crew were forfeit. Fight me! Clinton challenged him, his voice strident, ringing with triumph. Again? ' Mungo asked, and the smile touched his lips fleetingly, then was gone.
Clinton shouldered his way roughly through the press of his own men. The last time it had been pistols, Mungo St. John's choice of weapon, but now Clinton had the familiar weight and balance of a naval cutlass in his right hand, his weapon, that he had first swung as a midshipman of fourteen years old, and the whip cord muscles in his long right arm were seasoned to the use of the blade, and every evolution in its use, every trick and subterfuge had been drilled until they were instinctive.
As they came together, Clinton feinted and cut backhanded and low, going for the hip to cripple and bring the man down. As the stroke was parried he felt the strength of Mungo's sword arm for an instant before he disengaged, and switched his attack fluidly, going on the thrust leading with his right foot, a full stroke, and again the parry was strong and neat, but only just strong enough to hold the heavier, broader steel of the cutlass.
Those two brief contacts were enough for Clinton to judge his adversary and find his weakness, the wrist. He had felt it through the steel the way a skilled angler feels the weakness of the fish through line and rod, it was the wrist. St. John did not have the steely resilience that comes only from long and dedicated exercise and practice.
He saw the flare of alarm in St. John's strangely flecked eyes. The American, too, had felt his own inadequacy, and he knew he did not dare to draw out the encounter.
He must try to end it swiftly, before the Englishman's superiority could wear him down.
With the swordsman's instinct, Clinton translated the little flicker of the golden yellow eyes. He knew that Mungo St. John was going on the attack, so that as the stroke came an instant later, he caught it on the broad curved blade of the cutlass; then he shifted his weight forward and, with a twist of his own iron wrist, prevented the disengagement, forcing St. John to roll his own wrist, the two blades milling across each other, the steel screeching sharply on a harsh abrasive note that set their teeth on edge. Clinton forced two and then three turns, the classic prolonged engagement from which Mungo St. John could not break without risking the thunderbolt of the riposte, and Clinton felt the other's wrist give under the strain. He lunged his weight against it, slid the guard of the cutlass high up the blade and used the rolling momentum of two blades and the leverage of his wrist and the curved guard of the cutlass to tear the hilt out of Mungo St. John's fingers The American's sword clattered to the deck between them, and Mungo St. John threw up both hands, sucked in his belly and flung himself back against the mainmast in an attempt to avoid the thrust of the heavy cutlass blade which he knew would follow. In the buy of hatred that possessed Clinton, there was no thought of giving quarter to the man whom he had disarmed.
The thrust was full-blooded, driven by all the strength of wrist and arm, of shoulder and of Clinton's entire body weight, the killing stroke.
Clinton's whole being had been concentrated on the man before him, but now there was movement in the periphery of his vision. Tippoo had seen his Captain disarmed in the same instant that he had just completed a swing with the axe. He was off balance, it would take only a shaded instant to recover that balance, to raise the axe again, but that instant of time would be too long, for he saw the cutlass stroke already launched, and Mungo St. John trapped helplessly against the mainmast, his belly unprotected and his empty hands held high.
Tippoo opened his huge paws and let the axe go spinning away, like a cartwheel, and then he reached out and seized the gleaming cutlass blade in one bare hand.
He felt the blade run between his fingers and the terrible sting of the razor-sharp edge cutting down to the bone, still he heaved with all his weight, pulling the point away from the helpless man against the mainmast, deflecting it but unable to hold it for the tensed tendons in his lacerated fingers parted, and the blade ran on driven by the full weight of the tall platinum-headed naval officer.
Tippoo heard the point of the cutlass scrape over one of his ribs, and then a numbness filled his chest, and he felt the steel guard of the hilt strike his rib cage, a thud like that of a butcher's cleaver striking the chopping board,
