In the first place, we may take it as absolutely certain that we very considerably outnumber the Genoese on board.

They must have suffered in the battle almost as much as we did, and have had nearly as many killed and wounded.

In the second place, if Doria intends to profit by his victory, he must have retained a fair amount of fighting men on board each of his galleys, and, weakened as his force was by the losses of the action, he can spare but a comparatively small force on board each of the fifteen captured galleys.

I should think it probable that there are not more than fifty men in charge of the Pluto, and we number fully three times that force.

The mere fact that they let down our food to us by ropes, instead of bringing it down, showed a consciousness of weakness." "What you say is quite true," Paolo Parucchi, the other officer of the Pluto, said; "but they are fifty well-armed men, and we are a hundred and fifty without arms, and shut down in the hold, to which must be added the fact that we are cut off from our men, and our men from us.
They are, as it were, without a head to plan, while we are without arms to strike." A murmur of approval was heard among some of the young men.
"I do not suppose that there are no difficulties in our way," Francis said quietly; "or that we have only, next time the hatch is opened, to say to those above, 'Gentlemen of Genoa, we are more numerous than you are, and we therefore request you to change places with us immediately.' All I have asserted, so far, is that we are sufficiently strong to retake the ship, if we get the opportunity.