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 Falcon's great voice boomed out above the gale and the yells of his men:

"Lance Falcon's luck, my bullies! It's's never failed us yet."

A seaman sailed the Merry Amy and the men who sailed with him were seamen. To clear the wreckage of that fallen topmast in so heavy a sea was no light task; yet within a few minutes it was done. Diccon Drews, watching through his glass a short thick man on the Merry Amy's deck who directed the work, bestowed various foul epithets upon Black Lowther that were eloquent, though indirect, compliments to his skill. Falcon gave him more candid praise. There were two men on the Western Ocean, he told Lachlan, whose handiwork that might have been. One was Captain Lowther of the ship, Merry Amy; the other was Captain Falcon of the Good Fortune, brig.

Then suddenly the easy nonchalance that had sat so well upon him vanished. With the frenzy of a madman he threw himself into his work, straining at the wheel, cursing with fearful blasphemies the gunners who still plied the stern gun as fast as they could ram each charge home, bellowing hoarse orders to the seamen forward and in the vessel's waist. And as Falcon's frown blackened and his vehemence increased, the leering smile on Diccon Drews' powder-blackened face widened until at last the hairy lieutenant's satisfaction found utterance.