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 CHAPTER XXXVII

JUST IN TIME

Moments are precious at such a time. The negro, goaded by shame, rage, and alcohol, had drawn his breath for a spring, when a loud cheer was heard outside, followed by two or three dropping shots, and the ring of a hearty English voice exclaiming—

"Hold on, mates! Don't ye shoot wild a-cause of the ladies. It's yardarm to yardarm, this spell, and we'll give these here black devils a taste of the naked steel!"

In another moment Slap-Jack was in the passage, leaving a couple of wounded ruffians on the stairs to be finished by his comrades, and cutting another down across the very door-*sill of the Marquise's bed-chamber. Ere he could enter it, however, his captain had dashed past him, leaping like a panther over the dead negroes under foot, and flashing his glittering rapier in the astonished eyes of the Coromantee, who turned round bewildered from his prey to fight with the mad energy of despair.

In vain. Of what avail was the massive iron crowbar, wielded even by the strength of a Hercules, against the deadliest blade but one in the Great Monarch's body-guard?

A couple of dazzling passes, that seemed to go over, under, all round the clumsier weapon—a stamp—a muttered oath, shut in by clenched, determined teeth, and the elastic steel shot through Hippolyte's very heart, and out on the other side.

Spurning the huge black body with his foot, Captain George withdrew his sword, wiped it grimly on the dead man's woolly head, and, uncovering, turned to the ladies