Opening the door, Francis walked along a passage, and then through an outer door into the waist of the ship.  The wind was blowing fiercely, but the gale was not so violent as it had appeared to them when confined below.  The night was dark, but after a week’s confinement below, his eyes were able easily to make out almost every object on deck.  There were but few sailors in the waist.  The officers would be on the poop, and such of the crew as were not required on duty in the forecastle.  Man after man joined him, until some thirty were gathered near the bulwarks.  An officer on the poop caught sight of them by the light of the lantern, which was suspended there as a signal to the other vessels.

“What are all you men doing down there?” he challenged.  “There is no occasion for you to keep on deck until you are summoned.”

“Do you move forward with the men here, Parucchi.  Knock down the fellows on deck, and rush into the forecastle and overpower them there, before they can get up their arms.  I will summon the rest in a body, and we will overpower the officers.”

He ran back to the cabin door, and bade the men follow him.  As they poured out there was a scuffle on the deck forward, and the officer shouted out again: 

“What is going on there?  What does all this mean?”

Francis sprang up the ladder to the poop, followed by his men, and before the officer standing there understood the meaning of this sudden rush of men, or had time to draw his sword, he was knocked down.  The captain and three other officers, who were standing by the helm, drew their swords and rushed forward, thinking there was a mutiny among their crew; but Francis shouted out: 

“Throw down your weapons, all of you.  We have retaken the ship, and resistance is useless, and will only cost you your lives.”

The officers stood stupefied with astonishment; and then, seeing that fully twenty armed men were opposed to them, they threw down their swords.  Francis ordered four of the sailors to conduct them to the captain’s cabin, and remain in guard over them; then with the rest he hurried forward to assist Parucchi’s party.

But the work was already done.  The Genoese, taken completely by surprise, had at once surrendered, as the armed party rushed in the forecastle, and the ship was already theirs.  As soon as the prisoners were secured, the after hatch was thrown off, and those whose turn to crawl up through the hole had not yet arrived came up on deck.

“Rinaldo,” Francis said, as soon as the crew had fallen into their places, “send a man aloft, and let him suddenly knock out the light in the lantern.”

“But we can lower it down, captain, from the deck.”

“Of course we can, Rinaldo, but I don’t want it lowered down, I want it put suddenly out.”

Rinaldo at once sent a man up, and a minute later the light suddenly disappeared.

“If we were seen to lower it down,” Francis said to Matteo, “the suspicions of those who noticed it would be at once aroused, for the only motive for doing so would be concealment; whereas now, if it is missed, it will be supposed that the wind has blown it out.  Now we have only to lower our sails, and we can drop unobserved out of the fleet.”