"Second division, follow me!" he cried, as he picked up the cutlass he
had dropped.
About thirty men rushed to the quarter-deck, hurried on by Mr. Walbrook.
Christy leaped upon the rail, with the cutlass in his right hand, and
the revolver in his left, and dropped down upon the quarter deck of
the Tallahatchie, upon a squad of seamen who were lying low behind a
thirty-pounder, whose carriage was close to the bulwark, the piece
pointed forward.
The first lieutenant had seen from his position in the mizzen rigging
the trap which had been set for the crew of the Bellevite. They were
expected to leap to the rail, and cut away the boarding nettings--not
always used, but were on this occasion--and then drop down to the deck.
The first command would naturally have been to "Repel boarders;" but
this was not given, and no fighting was to be done till the boarders
reached the ship, when the thirty-pounder, doubtless loaded with grape
or shrapnel, was to mow down the invaders of the deck.
Christy's men poured down after him, and before the crew of the gun, who
had no doubt been ordered to conceal themselves, could get upon their
feet they were cut down by the impetuous tars from the Bellevite. It
was the work of but a moment. Christy had taken some pains to have the
opinion of Captain Rombold that American seamen were inferior to British
circulated, and the men evidently intended to prove that they were the
equals of any sailors afloat.
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