Wild Adventures round the Pole
Page 16
They sighted the island about seven bells in themorning watch. Suddenly there was a hail from the crow's-nest. It wasthe captain's voice.
"Come up here, Magnus Bolt, if your old bones will let you, and see whatyou shall see."
Magnus sprang up the rigging somewhat after the fashion of an antiquatedmonkey, but with an agility no one would have given him credit for.
"It is she!" he shouted, after he had had a look through the long glassin towards the iron-bound shores of the islands; "it is she! it is she!Ha! ha! ha!" and he positively danced and chuckled with delight.
"You'll fight? you'll fight?" he gasped. "Rather," replied McBain; "butwe'll run first. She shall fire the first shot, and, Magnus, you shallfire the second."
Half an hour afterwards, when our heroes came on deck to have theirmorning look around, they stared at each other in blank astonishment.The _Arrandoon_ looked as if she had just come out of a tornado and hadbeen dreadfully handled. The foretop-gallant mast was down, the jibboominboard, the screw was hoisted up, the funnel itself had been unshippedand was lashed to the deck, and the flag was flying at half-mast, as ifthe vessel were in distress, or had death on board.
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Now let me, with one touch of the fairy wand the storyteller wields,waft my readers on board the pirate herself. Fear not, for we will staythere but a brief space of time indeed. The tall and by no meansunprepossessing form of the captain, armed _cap-a-pie_, is leaningagainst the rudder-wheel, one spoke of which he holds. His mate is byhis side, glass in hand, examining the _Arrandoon_, now only a few milesoff.
"Ha! ha!" says the latter; "it is the same big craft we tried to strand;and she's had dirty weather, too--foretop-gallant mast and jibboom bothgone. She is flying a signal of distress."
"Distress? Eh? Ha! ha! ha?" laughed the pirate. "Isn't it funny?She'll have more of it; won't she, matie mine?"
The mate laughed and commenced to sing--
"`Won't you walk into my parlour?' Said the spider to the fly?"
"She's evidently a whaler, crow's-nest and all," he said.
"Well," said the captain, "we'll _w(h)ale_ her;" and he laughed at hisown stupid joke.
"I say there, old lantern-jaws," he bawled down the companion.
"I reckon," said a Yankee voice, "you alludes to this child."
"I do," cried the captain; "and look ye here. We are going to fight andso forth. If we're like to be bested, scupper the old man at once.D'ye hear?"
"Well, I guess I ain't deaf."
"Very well, then. Obey, or a short shrift yours will be."
"Why, captain," said the mate, "she knows us. She has put about, and isbearing away to the nor'-nor'-west."
"Then hands up-anchor," cried his superior. "Crowd all sail; she can'tescape us in her crippled condition."
"Ah! captain," the mate remarked, "had you taken my advice and giventhat pretty but sly minx the _sack_, ere she gave you the _slip_, thatwhaler would have been ours before now."
"Silence," roared the captain. "On that subject I will not hear a word.She shall be mine yet--or her father dies."
With the exception of the few sentences bawled down the companion, allthis was said in Danish, and my translation is a free one.
And so the chase commenced, and seawards before the pirate, in anapparently crippled condition, staggered the _Arrandoon_.
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"How far do you intend to bring her out?" asked Allan.
"Ten miles clear of these islands, anyhow," replied McBain, "then shewon't be able to play any pranks with us. Boys," continued McBain, afew minutes afterwards, "I'm going to write letters--home."
There was nothing very unusual in the tone of his voice as he spokethese words, but there was a meaning in them, nevertheless, that wasperfectly understood by our young heroes. They were not long, then,before they were each and all of them seated by the saloon table,inditing, it might or might not be, the last communications to the lovedones at home they _ever_ would pen. They were performing a duty--a sadone, perhaps, but still a duty; they were about to fight in a goodcause, doubtless, but the result of the battle was uncertain. The_Maelsturm_, for that was the name of the pirate, was better--or rather,I should say, more copiously--manned than the _Arrandoon_, and thoughnot so large a ship, she had more guns; her crew too fought with haltersround their necks, and would therefore doubtless fight to the bitterend. The only advantage--and it was a great one--possessed by the_Arrandoon_ was steam power. Hours went by, and the chase was stillkept up. It was six bells in the forenoon watch, and the _Maelsturm_was hardly a mile astern. Our men had already had dinner, and were allin readiness--waiting, when, borne towards them over the wind-rippledwaters from the pirate ship, came the quick, sharp rattle of akettledrum. One roll, two rolls, three.
"At last," said McBain, "they are beating to quarters."
A puff of smoke from the bow of the pirate, the roar of a gun, andalmost immediately after a round shot ricocheted past the quarter of the_Arrandoon_.
The battle was begun.
CHAPTER TEN.
"DOWN WITH THE RED FLAG AND UP WITH THE BLACK!"--VICTORY--AN OLDACQUAINTANCE--HIE, FOR THE NORTH.
If the crew of the _Arrandoon_ needed any stimulus to fight the pirate,beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainlywas given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft,"Down with the red flag and up with the black!" and the broad,white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skulland cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations. She had rounded,too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have beenvisible. Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear intothe hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes. Hatred andloathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear--well, in the matter ofscaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory class ofbeings in the world.
For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board the _Arrandoon_, asseen from the pirate's poop, must have considerably astonished--not tosay puzzled--the officers of that ship, for in that short space of timewhat had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisteda funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, movedslowly away beyond reach of her guns. Not for long was she gone,however. She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back shecame, black and grim, athirst for vengeance. But the pirate was nocoward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancingship, without eliciting a single shot save one.
This was the shot--the second shot--that McBain had promised Magnus. Itwent roaring through the air, crashed through the _Maelsturm's_ bulwarksmidships, and smashed a boat to flinders.
Magnus Bolt, or "Green," as he was better known, old as he was, was byfar the best shot in the ship. He and Mitchell, the mate, a man ofeagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired everygun in the fight that followed the second shot. If it were a starboardbroadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to takedeadly aim and fire it.
"Remember, gunners," cried McBain, "we've got to take that ship, and notto sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?"
On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and whenwithin two hundred yards of each other, the _Maelsturm_ heading northand west, the _Arrandoon_ going full speed south and east, the piratedelivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firingwith her bow guns. She could get no nearer the wind, however. To go onthe other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.
"Hard a port! Ease her a little! Steady as you go!" were the ordersfrom the quarter-deck of the _Arrandoon_. "Small-arm men to firewherever head or hand is visible."
Now the _Arrandoon_ delivers her broadside as she again comes parallelwith the _Maelsturm_, whose sails are all a-shiver. This just by way ofconfusing her a little. There is worse
to come, for the order is nowgiven to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister. Away steams the_Arrandoon_, and round goes the _Maelsturm_. Ah! well he knows what thefoe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can. But see!the _Arrandoon_ is round again; there will be no escaping her this time.Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicita reply.
"Sta'board!" cries the captain; "starboard?" he signals, with his calm,uplifted arm. "Starboard still! steady now!" Then, in a voice ofthunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spiteof all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to