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Jed’s heart pinched.“A sweetheart, you might say.”Who was, he hoped against hope, currently in the middle of escaping.

“A good trade?”

“I was a carrier.Lived in a village just a few dozen miles from here.And you?”

“I was a sweep’s boy.Hated it.Ran away to sea as soon as ever I could.”

They studied each other.The battle raged overhead, a confusion of shouts and groans, clashes and thuds.Down in the gig, neither of them moved.

“You’re desperate enough to jump me, en’t you?”the other man said.“What are you thinking, get your feet under you and throw yourself forward, give me a good headbutt in the jaw?And then I wallop you one.And then you lash out with your feet.And if we’re really unlucky, we overturn the gig and we both drown.”He let out a soft laugh.“There’s no call for us to hurt each other.”He jerked his head up at the schooner.“Go on, I won’t stop you.I’ll say you overpowered me.”

“With my hands tied?”

“Well, you’ll have to get loose first, won’t you?”

Jed jerked desperately at his bonds.

The man made no move to help.Jed looked about him, and his gaze fell on the rough edge of an oarlock.He turned, desperately sawing away, not caring if he cut his wrists at the same time.

The seaman watched him.“Sure you don’t want to stay?WeOssorieswon ten pound each in prize money last year, let me tell you.What do you say to that?”

Jed sawed harder.Finally, he felt the rope give way.

The other man picked up the short lengths of rope, looking at the frayed edges in a satisfied way.He shrugged.

“Well, go on, then.”

Before the man could change his mind, Jed scrambled up over the gunwale and onto the schooner—and into the middle of a pitched battle.

Men were pouring out of the hold, running for the starboard gunwale where the two boats awaited them.Other men were fighting.He saw moonlight glint on a pitchfork, a billhook, a threshing flail—men holding off the ship’s crew just long enough to let the prisoners get away.In the dark, it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but it seemed to Jed as though the prisoners and their friends vastly outnumbered the schooner’s crew.

Who were the rescuers?Friends of the Ilfracombe longshoremen, perhaps?There’d be time enough to find out later.Now, Jed had a more pressing problem: he was on the wrong side of the battle, on the port side of the ship.

A shadow loomed up out of the darkness, slashing a cutlass, and Jed ducked out of the way.

Hurriedly, he began to make his way around the edge of the deck, his head down, ears battered by the familiar clashes and shouts and cries of armed combat.Then a beam of lanternlight fell on something that sent a shock running through him: Wallace, just a few yards away, carrying a pitchfork.

He blinked, unable to believe his eyes, then ran across the deck.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

Wallace gasped.“Jed.Thank God.I’m looking for you two.I didn’t realise everything would be so—confused.”He flinched as metal clashed on metal nearby.From the awkward way he was holding the pitchfork, Jed guessed that he hadn’t made much use of it.

“Have you seen Solomon?”

“Yes.He went looking for you.”

The deck was clearing now.Most of the prisoners had escaped into the boats.Two men were bending over another near the mainmast.One man was half-carrying, half-dragging his injured friend across the deck to the boats.Three burly longshoremen were forcing seamen down into the hold at cutlass point.

Jed looked around desperately.And thank God, there he was, abaft the mainmast.Solomon.At the same moment, Solomon saw him.They met in the middle of the near-empty deck.

“God, I thought you’d gone to theOssory.”

“I almost did.”They were clutching each other, and Jed felt something sticky under his hands.“You’re bleeding!”

“Yes, I think so.I didn’t even notice…”

Solomon’s voice was faint, and Jed remembered the shock of his own first battle.He pulled Solomon into a patch of moonlight.Blood was oozing from a small gash on Solomon’s arm.“It’s not serious.Thank God.Here”—he tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt—“we’ll bind it up with this.”