I quite expected to find that our final broadside, in addition to bringing down the brig's masts, had swept her crew practically out of existence.  I was therefore most disagreeably surprised to discover that, despite the havoc which we had undoubtedly wrought, and the evidences of which became clearly visible as the breeze swept the smoke away, the pirates still numbered at least two to our one, and were apparently in nowise dismayed at the havoc which that last broadside of ours had wrought; on the contrary, they received us with the utmost intrepidity, and in an instant we of the _Francesca_ found ourselves hemmed in and pressed so vigorously that, instead of sweeping the decks and carrying the brig with a rush, as I had fully expected we should, it was with the utmost difficulty that we were able to hold our ground at all.  The pirate captain, easily distinguishable among the rest by his good looks and the smartness of his dress, was here, there, and everywhere apparently at the same moment, urging on and encouraging his men in fluent Spanish, while he defended himself from the simultaneous attack of three of our people with consummate ease.  He fought cheerfully, joyously, like a man who enjoys fighting, with a reckless jest on his lips, but with a ferocity that was terrible to behold. Twice I crossed swords with him.  On the first occasion I had hardly engaged when I was so severely jostled that I suddenly found myself completely at his mercy, and gave myself up as lost, for his sword was descending straight upon my defenceless head as his eyes glared tiger- like into mine, when, apparently through sheer caprice, he diverted his stroke, and, instead of cleaving me to the chin, as he could easily have done, vigorously attacked the man next to me; while on the second occasion, which occurred a minute or two later, he contented himself with simply parrying my thrust, and then permitted himself to be separated from me by a rush of our men.  For ten long minutes the fight raged most furiously on the brig's deck, fortune sometimes favouring us for a moment and then deserting us in favour of the pirates.  The battle occasionally resolved itself for a moment into a series of desperate single combats, during which men savagely clutched each other by the throat and stabbed at each other with shortened weapons, and then merged again into a general melee in which each man seemed to strike recklessly at every enemy within reach, regardless of his own safety.  And then, while the fight was still in full swing, I suddenly received a terrific blow on the top of my skull and fell senseless upon the deck.  My last conscious sensation was that of being trampled remorselessly under foot by a furious rush of men.