CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE PIRATES ATTEMPT A NIGHT ATTACK UPON THE "FOAM."
The men were busily discussing their "nip" of grog when, mechanicallyglancing over the black surface of the water which lay spread out on allsides of the ship, my gaze was arrested by a sudden phosphorescent flashon our starboard beam, which was now turned in the direction of theislands we had been watching so suspiciously earlier on in the night.Looking intently I caught it again, and yet again, three or four times.
The gunner at that moment approached me to report that the men were allready to turn-to once more, upon which I directed his attention to thepoint at which I had noticed the mysterious appearance, and asked him ifhe could see anything.
Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked earnestly in the directionindicated.
"N-o, sir, I can't say as I can," replied he, after a good long look;"you see, sir, it's so precious dark just now that there's no--eh, whatwas that? I thought I seed something just then, sir," as another flashappeared, this time sensibly nearer the ship than before.
"So did I," I replied; "and it is my belief, Tompion, that what we sawis neither more nor less than the phosphorescent flash of oars in thewater. If I am not mistaken there is a boat out there trying to stealdown and catch us unawares. Just go to the men, please, and pass theword for them to go _quietly_ to quarters, and see that the starboardbroadside guns are loaded with grape."
Courtenay just then emerged from the companion with a lighted cigar inhis mouth, which he had helped himself to in the brief interval of restfollowing the floating of the schooner. The spark at the end of theweed glowed brightly in the intense darkness, and could probably be seenfor a considerable distance.
"Dowse that cigar, Courtenay, _quick_!" I exclaimed, as I moved to hisside, "and tell me if you can hear or see anything over there."
Instinctively guessing at an alarm of some kind from the quarter I hadindicated, my shipmate stepped to the opposite side of the deck, droppedhis cigar over the rail, and rejoined me.
"Now then, what is it, Lascelles?" he asked; "is there anything wrong?and why are the men mustering at quarters?"
"Look over in that direction, and see if you can find an explanation,"said I.
Unconsciously imitating Tompion in the attitude he assumed, Courtenaystood intently gazing into the darkness for a full minute or more,without result. He had turned to me and was about to speak when a faint_crack_, like the breaking of a thole-pin, was heard, the sound beingaccompanied by a very distinct luminous splash of the water.
"Ha!" exclaimed Courtenay, "there is a boat over there at no greatdistance from us!" and at the same moment Fidd came barefooted andnoiselessly to my side with the question:
"Did ye see and hear that, sir?"
"Ay, ay, Mr Fidd, I saw it. Are the starboard guns loaded?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then kindly pass along the word to the captain of each gun to watch forthe next splash and then to train his gun upon it."
"Ay, ay, sir," was the reply; and Fidd turned away to execute hismission as I sprang upon the rail and, grasping one of the shrouds ofthe main rigging to steady myself, hailed in Spanish:
"Boat ahoy! who are you, and what do you want? Lay on your oars andanswer instantly, or I will fire upon you."
I waited a full minute without eliciting any response or sign of anydescription from the direction in which our enemies were supposed to belurking, and then ordered a port-fire to be burnt and a musket to befired in their direction.
A brief interval elapsed, and then the darkness was suddenly broken intoby the ghastly glare of the port-fire, with which one of the men nimblyshinned up the fore-rigging in order to send the illumination as farabroad as possible, and at the same instant a musket was fired. For amoment or two nothing whatever was to be seen but our own decks, withthe men standing stripped to the waist at their guns--a row of statueshalf marble, half ebony, as the glare lighted up one side of each figureand left the other side in blackest shadow--the spars and riggingtowering weird and ghostly up into the opaque blackness above us likethose of a phantom ship; whilst the water shimmered like burningbrimstone under the baleful light. Then, evidently under the impressionthat the boat had become visible in the gleam of the port-fire--thoughat that instant we could see nothing--a voice was heard from out thedarkness on our starboard beam exclaiming in Spanish:
"Give way with a will, my heroes! one smart dash now and we shall bealongside yet before they can load their guns."
The dash of oars in the water instantly followed, the whereabouts of theboat being at once made manifest by the flash of the port-fire upon thewet oar-blades, and upon the foaming ripple which gathered under thebows of the boat; and by the time that half a dozen strokes had beenpulled the boat herself--a very large craft, apparently, and crowdedwith men--became dimly visible like a faint luminous mist driving alongthe surface of the inky water.
"Steady now, men," I cried. "Take your time, and aim straight. Saywhen you are ready."
"All ready with the midship gun!"
"All ready aft!"
"Ready for'ard!"
The replies were uttered almost simultaneously, and I instantly gave theword "_Fire_!"
The three guns rang out as one, the triple flash not only illuminatingvividly, for a fraction of a second, the boat against which they weredischarged, but also revealing for the same brief space of time a secondand similar boat a few yards in the rear of the first. Fatally spedthose three terrible charges of grape. The guns had been aimed withsuch deadly precision, and discharged so exactly at the right moment,that the leading boat was literally torn to pieces; so utterlydestroyed, indeed, that she seemed to have vanished instantly from thesurface of the lagoon, leaving in her stead only a few fragments ofshattered planking, and a broad patch of phosphorescent foam in themidst of which floated her late crew, a ghastly array of _corpses_, savewhere, here and there, some wretch, less fortunate than his comrades,still writhed and splashed feebly as the life reluctantly left his tornand mutilated body. The spectacle of this catastrophe, so suddenly andcompletely wrought, this instant destruction of some thirty or fortyhuman beings, was absolutely appalling; and its effect was intensifiedby the extraordinary circumstance that not a single shriek, or groan, oroutcry of any description, escaped the victims of our murderous fire.So dreadful was the sight that, for perhaps half a minute, the entirecrew of the schooner, fore and aft, stood motionless and dumb, petrifiedwith horror, staring with dilated eyeballs at the spot where the bodies,now all motionless, lay faintly defined in the last rays of the almostburnt-out port-fire.
But there was no time to be lost; another boat was lurking out theresomewhere, in the impenetrable gloom; so, rallying my faculties by apowerful effort, I managed to exclaim in a tolerably steady voice:
"Load again, men, smartly! there is another boat out there somewhere,and she must be prevented from coming alongside at all costs. Lightanother port-fire forward, there!" as the man in the fore-riggingdropped the fag-end of the first into the water alongside and theblackness of darkness once more enshrouded us as with a pall.
There was, apparently, to be no more fighting just then, however; thecrew of the remaining boat had evidently seen enough to completely damptheir ardour, for the time being at least, for before the operation ofreloading the guns had been completed, the splash and roll of oars intheir rowlocks could be heard in fast diminishing cadence, conveying toour experienced ears the fact that our enemies were beating aprecipitate retreat.
But the horrors of the night were not yet quite over, for, whilst wewere busily preparing to hoist in the guns from the raft alongside andto get the ballast back into its proper place in the hold, a loud,confused, splashing sound was suddenly heard away on our starboard beam,and, on looking in that direction to ascertain what this new disturbancemight portend, we saw that the water was literally alive with hundredsof sharks, distinctly visible by the phosphorescent glow which shonefrom their bodies, which were tearing
and snapping at the floatingcorpses of the pirates, rending them limb from limb, and rushing off inall directions with the dismembered fragments as the monsters succeededin securing them.
Such a sight was not calculated to inspire the men with any relish forthe somewhat perilous task of going down upon the submerged raft andinto the deeply-laden boats to sling the guns and ballast; but the workhad to be done, and the boatswain and the gunner volunteering to go downfirst, we soon had the work well under weigh, finishing itsatisfactorily off and bringing a toilsome night of labour to an endabout two o'clock the next morning.
By daybreak all hands were once more astir, notwithstanding the arduouscharacter of their previous day's and night's work; the anchor wasweighed; and under short canvas, with Courtenay once more on thetopgallant-yard to con us, and a leads-man in the fore-chains on eachside of the ship, we cautiously felt our way to the northward andwestward until, about seven bells, we managed to reach the anchoragewhich the feluccas had vacated on the previous day. A hurried breakfastwas then scrambled through; after which the long-boat and the gig, underthe command of Courtenay and the boatswain, with their crews fullyarmed, pulled away for the shore, to see whether they could discoveranything like a depot, of which no sign whatever could be detected fromthe deck of the schooner.
They pulled inshore about a quarter of a mile, after which we suddenlylost sight of them among the mangroves which thickly fringed the shoresof the island. Three or four minutes later the sound of musketryfiring, at first in whole volleys and then intermittingly, floated offto us from the direction where the boats had disappeared, and very soonwe saw the light wreaths of pale-blue smoke floating up and out fromamong the trees. The firing soon ceased; and then nothing more washeard or seen for nearly two hours, at the end of which time a thinvolume of light brownish smoke rose into the sky from about the spotwhere we had before seen the indications of musketry firing; the smoke,rapidly increasing in volume and deepening in colour until, thicklybesprinkled with sparks, it poured across the bay in one vast denseblack cloud which swept right over us where we lay, half suffocating uswith its pungent fumes, and almost hiding the islands from sight. Then,when the smoke-cloud had become almost intolerable, the boats were seenapproaching; upon which the schooner was hove short and the canvas setin readiness for a speedy retreat from our uncomfortable berth. Themoment that they came alongside the anchor was tripped, and, by the timethat the boat's crews were once more on the schooner's decks, we had runout clear of the nuisance. The _Foam_ was then hove to; sevensingularly heavy kegs were hoisted in from the long-boat; the boatsthemselves next followed; and then away we went, groping our way asbefore, back toward the main channel from the sea. This channel wassuccessfully traversed and the open sea reached about three bells in theafternoon watch, when I turned over the command of the schooner toCourtenay and went below to my berth, not only dead tired, but alsosuffering dreadfully from the wound in my head, which had not beendressed for nearly twenty-four hours, and which was certainly none thebetter for the excitement and exposure of the preceding night. Previousto this, though, I had been fully informed of what had transpired onshore; and which may be related in a very few words.
It appeared that the sudden evanishment of the boats from our sight wasdue to the fact that they had discovered and pushed into a narrowchannel running to the northward and eastward between the twowesternmost islands of the group; along which channel they had proceededfor about half a mile when they suddenly opened a tiny bay, on theirstarboard hand, from the shore of which projected a long wooden jetty ofrough mangrove piles decked over with ship timber. This jetty they atonce headed for, and were immediately saluted with a volley of musketryfrom a long black wooden building which stood close to the shore.Luckily, nobody was hit; and the same good fortune befell them when,whilst landing on the jetty, a second volley was fired at them. Thetars, headed by Courtenay and the boatswain, then charged up to thebuilding, and, without very much difficulty, burst in the door, just intime to see some twenty Spaniards effecting a hasty retreat through anopening in the opposite side of the building. Our lads at once crowdedsail in chase, shouting and laughing like a parcel of schoolboys out fora holiday, and occasionally stopping to pop away at the enemy withmusket or pistol as opportunity offered. The Spaniards, however, werelighter in the heels than our own men, and they possessed the furtheradvantage of knowing the country, so they quickly hauled out of sight,nor was anything further seen of them, though Courtenay maintained thepursuit for about half an hour. The party then returned to the shed bythe beach; and whilst Courtenay with three or four hands gave the placea thorough overhaul, Fidd, with the remainder of the men, turned to andbroke up a very large yawl-built boat which was lying alongside thejetty, afterwards carrying her dismembered planking and timbers up tothe shed, to be still more effectually destroyed with it by fire. Aquantity of ship's stores, such as rope, canvas, pitch, tar, paint,etcetera, was found, evidently showing that this was one of the manypirates' rendezvous which were known to be in existence along thiscoast; but there was nothing in the shape of plunder except the sevenheavy kegs before mentioned, one of which, upon being opened, proved tobe filled with Spanish dollars (as did the rest, eventually), so theywere promptly tumbled down to the jetty and put on board the long-boat.It had evidently been a place of some little importance; but, fromCourtenay's account, it was not to be compared for a moment withMerlani's establishment. At last, the place having been thoroughlyrummaged, a bonfire was built on the weather side of the shed, which,being well fed with tar, etcetera, soon set the entire building in ablaze, after which they retreated to the boats, firing the jetty alsobefore shoving off. Altogether it was a very satisfactory morning'swork, since, with their limited facilities, it would be a long timebefore the pirates could make good the loss and damage inflicted uponthem, if indeed they would have the heart to attempt it at all. TheBarcos Channel being only some five hours' sail distant from the CristoCays, near which we had emerged once more into open water, and as itwould be quite impossible for us to traverse the intricate channelthrough Santa Clara Bay during the hours of darkness, Courtenaystretched off the land under easy canvas, and employed the remainder ofthe afternoon in getting up the two topmasts which the carpenter hadreduced, in place of the spars expended on the previous day. This jobwas completed and the schooner made all ataunto again by sunset; atwhich hour the _Foam_ was hove to with her head toward the land; and allhands, with the exception of the officer of the watch and two men on thelookout, were allowed to go below and get as much rest as possible, inorder that they might not only recover from the fatigue of the previousnight, but also prepare for what would probably prove an equallyfatiguing day on the morrow.
On sitting down to the dinner-table that evening we were much gratifiedto learn from Sanderson that poor O'Flaherty was doing remarkably well;so well indeed, that the doctor had yielded a somewhat unwilling assentto a wish the lieutenant had expressed to see me after dinner. But Iwas strictly enjoined to make the interview as brief as possible; and tobe cautious above all things not to engage in conversation of anexciting character. Accordingly, as soon as dinner was over, I knockedat the door of O'Flaherty's state-room, and, in response to his feeblyspoken "Come in," entered. Notwithstanding what Sanderson hadpreviously told us about his appearance, I was shocked to see howterribly loss of blood and the torture of his wound had pulled the poorfellow down. His swarthy, sunburnt features were now sallow, bloodless,and shrunken; contrasting strongly with his dark curly hair, which hungin long elf-locks over his forehead and about his face, dripping withperspiration caused partly by the excessive heat of the cabin and stillmore by the anguish from which he was suffering. A sheet was his onlycovering, his body being bare from the chest upwards, for greaterconvenience in dressing his wound; and his right shoulder and arm downto the elbow was closely swathed in bandages through which the bloodstill oozed here and there. There was a restless feverish gleam andglitter in his eyes which told all too plainly how acute
ly he wassuffering; and there was an occasional nervous twitching of the fingersof the right hand which I did not like to see, and which he said hadcome on within the last half-hour. But his spirits were excellent; andhis voice became stronger almost with every word he spoke as hequestioned me about our doings since the moment of his being struckdown. He expressed himself as highly satisfied with all that we haddone, and especially so at the watchfulness which had defeated thepirates' attempt at a night attack; but he intimated his expectationthat, although he was unable to actually command the schooner, I wouldkeep him fully acquainted with everything which might transpire, andconsult him with regard to every proposed movement of an importantcharacter. This I, at the time, thought reasonable enough; but I soonhad cause to regret that he had imposed any such condition upon me.
Daybreak next morning found us some eight miles off the mouth of theBarcos Channel, and in such a position that we should be dead towindward of it upon the springing up of the sea-breeze. We were,consequently, as well placed for the run down to it as heart could wish.But, on the boatswain calling me--I had remained in my berth allnight--I was greatly annoyed to learn that there was a small craft ofsome kind, apparently a one-masted felucca, hovering about the entranceof the channel and manoeuvring in such a way as to lead to the beliefthat she was enacting the part of lookout. Courtenay and I had bothbeen called at the same time; but he was the quicker of the two in hismovements; and upon my reaching the deck I discovered him on thetopsail-yard scrutinising the stranger through his telescope.
The craft was then becalmed, though _we_ had a nice little breeze fromabout east-north-east; but on our filling upon the schooner and edgingaway in her direction, the felucca--for such she was--at once rigged outsix sweeps of a side and headed direct for the mouth of the channel.Now this, I was afraid, indicated first, that the felucca was enactingthe part of lookout; and second, that our late antagonists had effecteda retreat to the Conconil lagoons, where they had probably unitedthemselves temporarily with Merlani's gang; and I anticipated that, ifthis surmise of mine should prove correct, we should have our hands morethan full in the forthcoming attack. So heavy, indeed, would be theodds against us in such a case that I thought it would be more prudentto defer the attack for a day or two, merely passing through the channeland affecting to make an examination of the cays on each side of it,previous to retiring again and pursuing a course to the westward, thusthrowing our adversaries off their guard; when I considered it might bepossible to effect a descent upon them by way of Cardenas Bay, throughwhich we might perhaps be able to so nearly approach them, unobserved,as to take them in a great measure by surprise. This plan, however, inconsequence of the injunction O'Flaherty had laid upon me at ourinterview of the previous evening, I dared not put into effect withoutfirst submitting it for his approval; and I accordingly went down to hisstate-room to speak to him about it. To my surprise and chagrin I foundhim utterly opposed to it. He argued that my plan would _not_ throw thepirates off their guard, whilst it would allow them a great deal moretime in which to complete their preparations for an effective defence;moreover, he disliked the idea of our making our approaches throughCardenas Bay because of our having originally passed through it duringthe night, when, as he said, we had had no opportunity to take carefulnote of the landmarks, etcetera. I reminded him of the fact that thewater in Cardenas Bay was deep enough to float the schooner everywhereabout the track over which we should have to pass, and that that trackwas, moreover, so nearly straight that, with a good breeze, we couldtraverse it in an hour, thus materially lessening our chance ofdiscovery; but it was all of no avail, he _would_ have his own way; so Iwas perforce compelled--with, I must confess, somewhat seriousmisgivings--to return to the deck and give the necessary orders forrunning in through the Barcos Channel as soon as the sea-breeze shouldspring up.
At length, after what appeared to me an unusually long delay, a cat's-paw reached us; and presently the true sea-breeze came creeping alongthe water, freshening as it came. We allowed it to reach the mouth ofthe channel, when the _Foam_ bore up; and a quarter of an hour later wewere rattling through the passage at the rate of eight knots. Onclearing the channel and opening up the bay we discovered the feluccasome four miles ahead, or about half-way across, foaming along with herenormously long tapering yard square across her deck and the sheet easedwell out, running down dead before the wind, straight for the entranceof the lagoons, apparently in the hope that we would follow her and thusground upon one of the numerous shoals which lay between her and us.But if they hoped this they were speedily disappointed, as the moment wehad cleared the end of the channel, all concealment being thenimpossible, we hauled our wind and headed the schooner for the first ofthe marks which were to pilot us safely on our difficult way. Before wehad completed our first reach the felucca had arrived at the entrance tothe lagoons, and had disappeared. It was half an hour after noon whenwe reached the same spot.
Two miles further on lay the narrowest passage in the whole length ofthe lagoons, and here I fully expected our progress would meet with acheck. Nor was I disappointed, for on reaching the spot our furtherprogress was suddenly interrupted, and the schooner brought up allstanding, by a heavy chain which had been thrown athwart the channel,just far enough beneath the surface of the water to catch our forefoot,the ends being artfully concealed among the bushes on either side.
"Down, flat on your faces on the deck, every man of you, fore and aft!"I shouted, for I guessed what would follow; and scarcely was the orderobeyed when the flash of artillery blazed out from among the mangroveson either hand, and a perfect hailstorm of grape and langridge struckus, riddling our bulwarks, and tearing the foot of the mainsail andforesail to shreds, but, luckily, not hitting a soul of us; though howCourtenay and I escaped--it not being etiquette for either of us to seekthe shelter of the bulwarks--heaven only knows; but we did. The gunswere pointed so as to sweep the ship from stem to taffrail at about thelevel of the top of the bulwarks; and, had the men been standing erect,we must have lost half of them.
"Starboard your helm! hard a-starboard!" cried I to the man at thewheel, as the schooner rebounded from the chain; "let fly your starboardbraces! Gigs and quarter-boats away! Mr Courtenay, have the goodnessto take the gig and silence that battery on the north side of thechannel; Mr Fidd, go you in the quarter-boat and do the same with thebattery on the south side. Take a hammer and a bag of nails each, andspike the guns before you leave them. Flatten in, forward there, thelarboard sheets, and help her head to pay round; we must go outsideagain and seek a passage elsewhere."
The men, fully realising the peril of the situation in which we nowfound ourselves, sprang like wild-cats to execute the orders I hadgiven; and in an incredibly short time both boats were in the water,with their crews in them, fully armed.
They were in the very act of shoving off when the sound of a suddencommotion in the cabin reached me, quickly followed by cries for helpfrom Sanderson; and, before I had time to reach the sky-light to seewhat was amiss, up through the companion dashed poor O'Flaherty closelyfollowed by the doctor, the former naked as when he was born, his hairbristling, his eyes aflame with fever, his teeth clenched, and the bloodstreaming from the disarranged bandages about his right shoulder. Heglared round the deck for an instant, a single horrible unearthly cryescaped from between his clenched teeth, and then--before any of us hadsufficiently recovered from our astonishment to lay a preventing handupon him--with one bound he reached the rail, sprang upon it, and,steadying himself with his left hand by grasping the main-topmast back-stay, waved his bleeding right arm frantically to Courtenay, who by thistime was a hundred yards away. At this moment the hidden battery on thenorth side of the channel again opened fire, this time with round shot.We felt a jar which told us that the schooner had been hulled; and, atthe same moment, heard a sickening thud and saw poor O'Flaherty's body,doubled-up like a pair of compasses, dashed lifeless and bloody to thedeck by one of the shot, which had struck him fair in the stomach a
ndcut him almost in two. It was a ghastly sight; but there was no timejust then to inquire of Sanderson what the sudden escapade meant, oreven to have the body removed, for the schooner was at that moment headto wind, and I was most anxious to get her round, which in that crampedchannel was no very easy matter. We managed to box her off, however, inthe right direction, when the topsail was backed, and we lay motionlesson the half stagnant water waiting for the return of the boats.
We had not very long to wait. A loud, confused shouting, intermingledwith a ringing British cheer from our own lads now and then, accompaniedby the clash of steel and the popping of pistols, told us, whilst wewere manoeuvring the schooner, that the boats' crews had effected alanding; and about ten minutes later Courtenay's boat reappeared,emerging from among the mangroves with another boat in tow, which, beingcaptured from the enemy, was stove and sunk directly she was broughtalongside the schooner. Fidd's boat followed almost immediatelyafterwards; and I then had the gratification of learning that bothbatteries had been captured, the guns spiked and capsized into the mud,and the men who manned them driven off into the swamps, where they wereperfectly powerless to work us further harm, for some time to come atall events, in consequence of the destruction of the boat, whichconstituted their only means of escape from the situation they thenoccupied. And this, too, without injury to a man on our side, thoughthe pirates had suffered pretty severely.
This was eminently satisfactory. There was now nothing to prevent theremoval by us of the chain which barred our passage up the lagoon; but Ihad a shrewd suspicion that other snares and pitfalls had been preparedfor us further on, and I had made up my mind to see if these could notbe evaded by passing out of the lagoons and making our way to thewestward, close along the northern shore of the chain of islands whichformed them. I thought it quite possible that a navigable channel forthe schooner might be found somewhere between these islands, givingaccess to the lagoons so near their head as to be beyond the range ofwhatever other barriers to our upward progress might have been prepared;and, if we failed in this, I felt confident that we should at least beable to push through with our boats. As soon, therefore, as the boatshad been hoisted up, we filled on the schooner and made the best of ourway back again.
I judged that it would take us a full hour or more to reach the spotwhich I had in my mind's eye; advantage was therefore taken of thisbrief period of peace and quietness to let the men get their dinners,with a glass of grog afterwards. They were thus rested, refreshed, andready to do anything or go anywhere when, about three bells in theafternoon watch, we arrived at a spot distant something like five milesfrom the entrance to the lagoons, where we found a narrow but apparentlydeep channel trending to the southward, and promising to give access tothe lagoons.
The schooner was at once hove to, and Courtenay, in the gig, with hiscrew fully armed, went away to take soundings and to reconnoitre.Twenty minutes later the boat returned with the gratifying intelligencethat the channel was scarcely a quarter of a mile in length; that itcommunicated, as anticipated, with the lagoon, and that, too, soadvantageously that, with due caution and by taking advantage of thecover afforded by a small island, it might be possible for the boats toapproach undetected so closely to our enemies as to take them in a greatmeasure by surprise. It was further discovered that there were threefeluccas--one large three-masted craft and two small one-masters,surmised to be our recent acquaintances of the Cristo Cays--lying in theanchorage, with springs on their cables and apparently all ready forimmediate action; but the schooner which we saw on our last visit wasnow absent, and Merlani--presumably--with her. The channel upon whichwe had so fortuitously chanced was found to be of ample depth throughoutalmost its entire length to float the _Foam_; but, unhappily, there wasa sort of bar, with only four feet of water upon it, stretching entirelyacross its inner extremity; and we should thus be compelled to make theattack with the boats. This was peculiarly unfortunate, as it wouldnecessitate the division of our forces, a certain number of hands beingrequired to look after the schooner--and this we could ill afford to doin view of the strength of those opposed to us. There was, however,evidently no help for it; we therefore manned all three of the boats, asix-pounder being placed in the bows of the long-boat, or launch as ourpeople had got into the way of calling her; and I decided, afterconsiderable reflection, to personally lead the attack, leaving theschooner under weigh and with all her guns loaded with round and grape,with six hands and the quarter-master on board to take care of her. Iwas, heaven knows, wretchedly unfit for service of so arduous acharacter as that involved in a boat attack; but the consciousness thatupon the result of this action depended the success or failure of themain object of the expedition, coupled with the anxiety attendant uponmy responsible position, overcame for the time being the feeling ofillness resulting from my wound, and created a restless excitement andeagerness for which I feared I should afterwards suffer severely, butwhich impelled me at all risks to be present and to take the directionof affairs. The men, encouraged by the report of the gig's crew,tumbled into the boats with alacrity and in high spirits; Courtenayretained the command of the gig; Fidd, the boatswain, again assumed thecommand of the quarter-boat; and, snatching a cutlass from the arm-chest, I stepped into the launch, said a parting word or two to thequarter-master, and then gave the order to shove off; upon which away weall dashed in profound silence for the mouth of the passage.
The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba Page 16
