“I hope they’ve seen that aboard the Dry Spell and the Peck o’ Clams,” whispered Miss Kitely, “or they’ll ram her as she turns.”

From within the Laurel Bower it was impossible to see past the struggling lighter, but from astern came a grinding crack that set everyone’s teeth on edge.

“The Dry Spell has steered clear,” Stallwrath called down, “but they’re standing a-luff now. The Peck o’ Clams has ploughed into the Catnip, and I think she’ll be tangled there for a time. The Queens’ Heads is going about, and her crew is whisker-poling the jib. Skipp’am, she’s goose-winged and bearing down on us.”

The pursuit was all the more tense due to the fact that both coffeehouses were going rather more slowly than the average oyster barrow. A race run through treacle is very hard on the nerves.

“We could go faster straddling a cat,” Captain Blythe was heard to mutter.

Another shot was fired, and one of the little bumboats rowed away for the shore, water spewing in from a hole beneath its waterline. When those on the Laurel Bower could make out the pattern on the curtains of the pursuing coffeehouse, the pistols came into their own, and soon the main coffeeroom of the Bower was lost in a fog of gunsmoke. Still the Queens’ Heads gained, and as the Bower’s sails sagged, the remaining gap closed all the more quickly.

“What was that?” A loud rattle above, from the neighborhood of the chimney.

“Boarders! It’s a grappling iron!” Blythe’s legs disappeared as he scrambled up the ladder to the deck. “I think it’s meant to be, anyway,” his voice continued more faintly. “It looks like part of someone’s grate . . .”

“Girls! To the galley!” Miss Kitely looked around her for the nearest set of ready arms. “You too, Mr. Clent.” Clent was not to be trusted with a pistol, but Miss Kitely was willing to place a ladle in his hands.

In the galley, Miss Kitely swung open the hatch to reveal the startled face of a petty constable, clinging to a rope with one hand and holding a pistol in the other. Concerted blows from three fiercely wielded ladles convinced him to release the pistol, and a face full of boiling coffee persuaded him to relinquish the rope. He disappeared downward with a shriek.