The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  “We had been out about a fortnight on my third voyage, and the schooner and brig were lying in a little bay when we saw what we took to be a large merchant ship coming along. She was all painted black, her rigging was badly set up, her sails were dirty and some of them patched, she was steering east, and seemed as if she was homeward bound after a long voyage. Off we went in pursuit, thinking we had got a prize. She clapped on more sail, but we came up to her hand over hand. She opened fire with two eight pounders over her stern. We didn’t waste a shot in reply, but ranged up alongside, one on each beam. Then suddenly her sides seemed to open, fifteen ports on each side went up, and her deck swarmed with men.

  “A yell of dismay went up from the schooner which I was on. In a moment a flash of fire ran along the frigate’s broadside; there was a crash of timber, and the schooner shook as if she had struck on a rock. There was a cry, ‘We are sinking!’ Some made a wild rush for the boats, others in their despair jumped overboard, some cursed and swore like madmen and shook their fists at the frigate. It seemed no time when another broadside came.

  “Down came the foremast, crushing half a dozen men as she fell. Her deck was nearly level with the water now. I climbed over the wreck of the foremast, and run out along the bowsprit. I looked round just as I leaped. The pirate captain was standing at the wheel. He had a pistol to his head, and I saw the flash, and he fell. Then I dived off and swam under water as hard as I could to get away from the sinking ship. When I came up I looked round. I just saw the flutter of a black flag above the water and she was gone. I was a good swimmer, and got rid of my shoes and jacket, and made up my mind for a long swim, for the frigate was too busy with the brig for any one to pay attention to us, but it did not take long to finish it.

  “In five minutes it was over. The brig lay dismasted, and scarce a dozen men out of the forty she carried were alive to throw down their arms on deck and cry that they surrendered. Then the frigate’s boats were lowered; two rowed in our direction, while two put off to the brig. There were only nine of us picked up, for from the first broadside till we sank a heavy musketry fire had been poured down upon the deck, and as we were not more than fifty yards away from the frigate, the men had been just mowed down. We were all ironed as soon as we were brought on board. After that we were brought up one by one and questioned.

  “‘You are young to be engaged in such work as this,’ the captain said when my turn came.

  “‘I was forced into it against my will, sir,’ I said.

  “‘Yes,’ the captain said, ‘I suppose so; that’s the story each of the prisoners tells. How long have you been with them?’

  “‘Less than six months, sir.’

  “‘How old are you?’

  “‘I am not seventeen yet. I was boy on board the Jane and William. We were taken by the pirates on our way back from Rio, and all except me killed or thrown overboard.’

  “‘And you bought your life by agreeing to sail with them, I suppose?’ the captain said contemptuously.

  “‘I did, sir,’ I said; ‘but I was the last they asked; all the others had gone, and there warn’t no one to back me up.’

  “‘Well, boy, you know what your fate will be,’ the captain said; ‘there’s no mercy for pirates.’

  “The next day the captain sent for me again, and I took heart a little, for I thought if they had made up their minds to hang me they wouldn’t have questioned me.

  “‘Look here, lad,’ the captain said; ‘you are the youngest of the prisoners, and less steeped in crime than any here, therefore I will at once make you an offer. If you will direct us to the lair of the pirates, I promise your life shall be spared.’

  “‘I don’t know the latitude and longitudes sir,’ I said, ‘and I doubt if any besides the captain and one or two others do, but I know pretty well whereabout it is. We always set sail at night and came in at night, and none was allowed on deck except the helmsman and two or three old hands till morning; but when I was ashore and on duty at the lookout I noticed three trees growing together just at the edge of the cliff at the point where it was highest, two miles away from the entrance to the cove. They were a big un and two little uns, and I feel sure if I were to see them again I should know them.’

  “‘Very well,’ the captain said, ‘I shall make for port at once, and hand over the prisoners to the Spanish authorities, then I will start on a cruise with you, and see if we can find your trees.’

  “From the description I could give him of the islands we passed after we had been at sea a few hours, and the time it took us to sail from them to some known points, the captain was able to form a sort of idea as to which group of islands it belonged to, and when he had reached port and got rid of his prisoners, all of whom were garroted—that’s a sort of strangling, you know—by the Spaniards, a week afterward, we set out again on our search for the island.”

  CHAPTER V

  THE PIRATE HOLD

  “The frigate was again disguised as a merchantman, as, if she had passed within sight of the island looking like a ship of war, it would have put the pirates on their guard, and I had told the captain there were guns enough at the mouth of the cove to blow the ship’s boats out of the water. As to the frigate getting in, I knew she couldn’t, for there was only just enough water at the entrance for the pirate vessels to enter in. I was not in irons now, but spent my time on deck; and a wretched time it was, I can tell you, for not a sailor on board would speak to me.

  “For three weeks we cruised about, sailing round island after island, but at last as we were approaching one of them I saw the three trees.

  “‘That’s the place,’ I said to the boatswain, who was standing near me, and he carried the news to the quarterdeck, and brought back word I was to go to the captain.

  “You are sure those are the trees?’

  “‘Quite sure, sir.’

  “‘They answer to your description certainly,’ the captain said. ‘Keep her away, master, I don’t want them to think we are steering for the island.’

  “The ship’s course was altered, and she sailed along parallel with the coast.

  “‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ I said, touching my hat, ‘but they have got some wonderful good glasses up at the lookout, and if I might make so bold I should say that they will make out that we have got a lot more men on deck than a merchant ship would carry.’

  “‘You are right, lad,’ the captain said, and he at once gave orders that all hands with the exception of half a dozen should sit down under the bulwarks or go below. The captain and first lieutenant kept a sharp lookout through their glasses until we had passed the end of the island. I pointed out to them the exact position of the cove, but it was so shut in that even when I showed where it was, it was as much as they could do to make it out.

  “‘Now, lad, do you know of any other landing places on the other side of the island?’

  “‘No, sir, and I don’t believe there is any,’ says I. I know the captain said to me the first day I was on shore, ‘It’s no use your thinking of making a bolt, for there ain’t no other place but this where you could get to sea—not though you had twenty boats waiting to take you off.’ I expect that’s why they chose it. Anyhow, there never was any watch kept up on shore, though. I have no doubt there was many a one who had been pressed into pirating just as I was, to save their lives, would have made off had they seen ever such a little chance of getting away.

  “‘Just come into the cabin with me,’ says he; ‘I want you to show me exactly where are these batteries, and the position of the village on shore.’

  “The first lieutenant came too, and I drew them out a chart as well as I could, showing them the position of things, and told them that every evening a boom was floated across the entrance.

  “‘What sentries are there on at night?’

  “‘Four, sir; two close down to the water, one each side of the cove, and two in the batteries at the top. That’s the watch, but besides there are six men sleep in each
of the other batteries, and six in each of the batteries inside.’

  “‘Tell me more about the place and the life you led there,’ the captain said, ‘and then I shall understand the position of things better.’

  “So I spun him a regular yarn about the place and the people. I told him about the captain’s wife, and she being an English woman, and how she was taken, which indeed was the way of most of the women there.

  “‘I suppose that a good many of the men were pressed too,’ the captain said.

  “‘I expects so, sir; but when we were together on guard or on board a ship I noticed we never talked of such things. It seemed to me as if every one was trying to forget the past, and I think that made them more brutal and bloody minded than they would have been. Every one was afraid of every one else guessing as he wasn’t contented, and was wanting to get away, and so each carried on as bad as he could.’

  “‘I dare say you are right, lad; it must be a terrible position for a man to be in; but you see the law can make no distinctions. If it wasn’t thoroughly understood that if a man took up the life of a pirate, whether willingly or unwillingly, he would assuredly be executed if he was caught, we should have the sea swarming with pirates. Now, lad, you know how this boom was fastened; can you suggest any way that we could get over it or loosen it without giving the alarm?’

  “‘There is no way, sir. One end is fastened by a big chain which is fixed to a great shackle which is let into a hole in the rock and fastened in there with lead; that’s the fixed end of the boom. The other end, which is swung backward and forward when the ships go in port, has got a big chain too. It goes under an iron bar which is bent, and the two ends fastened in a rock. When they want to fix the boom the end of the chain is passed under this iron loop and then fastened to some blocks and ropes worked from the battery above, and the end of the chain is drawn up tight there, so that there is no loosing the chain till that battery is taken.’

  “‘And you say the guns of the lower batteries at the inner point sweep the entrance?’

  “‘They do, sir. There are ten of them on each side, twelve pounder carronades, which are always charged, and crammed up to the muzzle with bullets and nails and bits of iron. The batteries on the top of the cliff at the entrance are the heaviest metal. They have got twenty guns in each of them. They are loaded with round shot to keep a vessel from approaching, though of course they could fire grape into any boats they saw coming in.’

  “‘This does not seem an easy business by any means, Mr. Earnshaw,’ the captain said.

  “‘It does not, sir,’ the lieutenant agreed in a dubisome sort of way; ‘but no doubt it can be done, sir—no doubt it can be done.’

  “‘Yes, but how?’ the captain asked. ‘You will be in command of the boats, Mr. Earnshaw, and it will never do to attack such a place as that without some sort of plan.’

  “‘What is the boom like, my lad?’ the lieutenant asked; ‘is it lashed together?’

  “‘No, it is a solid spar,’ I said. ‘The entrance is not more than forty feet wide, and the boom is part of the mainmast of a big ship.’

  “‘It seems to me,’ said the lieutenant, ‘that the only way to get at it would be to go straight at the boom, the two lightest boats to go first. The men must get on the spar and pull the boats over, and then make a dash for the batteries; the heavy boats can follow them.’

  “‘It would never do, Mr. Earnshaw,’ the captain said. ‘You forget there are twelve guns loaded to the muzzle with grape and musketballs all trained upon a point only forty feet across. Would it be possible to land just outside the boom, lad, on one or both sides, and to keep along the edge, or wade in the water to the batteries?’

  “‘No, sir, the rock goes straight up from the water both sides.’

  “‘Well, the two sentries, how do they get down to the water’s edge?’

  “‘They are let down by rope from above, sir, and the rope is hauled up as soon as they are down.’

  “‘This is a deuce of a place, Mr. Earnshaw,’ the captain said. ‘We must do nothing hastily in this matter, or we shall only be throwing away the lives of a lot of men, and failing in our object. I was intending to sail on and not return for a week, for no doubt they will be specially vigilant for a time after seeing a large ship pass them. As it is, I will return tonight to the back of the island, and will there leave the cutter and my gig. You will be in charge of the cutter, and Mr. Escombe will take the gig. I shall then sail away again before daylight; for although from what the lad said there is no watch kept on that side of the island, it cannot be more than three miles across, and any of the men or women might stroll across or might from any high point in the island obtain a view that way. You will make a thorough survey of all that side. The cliffs certainly seem, so far as we could see them as we left the island, as perpendicular as they are on the side we passed; but there may be some place easier than another—some place where, by setting our wits to work, we may make a shift to climb up. Get into the island I will, if I have to blast a flight of steps up the cliff.’

  “‘I will do my best to find a place, sir,’ the lieutenant said; ‘and, if there isn’t one, I will make one.’

  “The lieutenant told me that I was to accompany him in the cutter, and all was got ready for the trip. Water and a week’s rations of food were placed on board the boats; for in that climate there was no saying when a gale might spring up, or how long the vessel might be before she got back to pick up the boats.

  “When we were fairly out of sight of the island we lay to till it got dusk, and then her head was pointed back again. There was scarce a breath of wind stirring, and the vessel went through the water so slowly that a couple of hours later the captain ordered the boats to be lowered, for he saw that if the wind didn’t freshen the ship could not get to the island, much less get away again, before daylight. The oars were got out and off we started, and after four hours’ steady rowing, the lieutenant, who was steering by compass, made out the land looming high above us. Another quarter of an hour’s row and we dropped our grapnels close to the foot of the cliffs, and the men were told to get a sleep as well as they could till morning.

  “As soon as it was daylight we were off again and rowed to the end of the island; for, as Mr. Earnshaw said to the third lieutenant, we had best begin at the end and do the work thoroughly. When we got to the point we turned and rowed back, keeping about two hundred yards from the cliff, so that we could see well up. They were about a hundred feet high—sometimes a little less, sometimes a good bit more, and they went as straight up from the water’s edge as the cliffs at Dover, only there weren’t no beach. It was deep water right up to the foot.

  “We went along very slowly, the men only just dipping their oars into the water, and all of us watching every foot of the cliffs. Sometimes we would stop altogether while the officers talked over the possibility of any one climbing up at some place where the water trickling down from the top had eaten away the face a little; but not a goat in the world could have climbed up them, not to say men. So we kept on till we got to the other end of the island, which must have been five miles long. Not a place could we see.

  “‘Unless we are going to do as the captain said—blast steps up the face of that rock—I don’t believe it’s to be done,’ Lieutenant Earnshaw said to Mr. Escombe. ‘Well, there’s nothing to do, lads, but to row in and drop your grapnels again and wait till we see the ship’s lights tonight.’

  “Although we rowed in to within an oar’s length of the cliff, there was eight fathoms of water when we dropped the grapnels. We had been lying there an hour when the third lieutenant said:

  “‘I should think, Mr. Earnshaw, that if we were to bring the pinnace with that four pounder gun in the bow and up end it, and with a small charge fire a ball with a rope fastened to it up into that clump of trees we saw just about the middle of the island, it might get caught.’

  “‘So it might, Escombe, and the idea is a good one; but I doubt wheth
er there’s a man on board ship could climb a rope swinging like that against the face of those cliffs.’

  “‘He might if we used a knotted rope,’ Mr. Escombe said.

  “‘I wouldn’t mind making a try, yer honor,’ one of the sailors said, and half a dozen others volunteered their readiness to make the attempt.

  “‘I will put it to the captain,’ Mr. Earnshaw said; ‘if he agrees, as you were the first to volunteer, Jones, you shall have the chance.’

  “The day was dead calm, so was the night that followed it; and although we rowed back to the end of the island from which we had come, no lights were to be seen that night.

  “The next day passed slowly. The sun was hot; but toward evening the lieutenant gave permission for the men to bathe; but warned us that no man must go far from the boats, because there might be sharks about. However, we didn’t see none, and we enjoyed the dip, and were in better humor still when we found that a light breeze was springing up. It might have been about midnight when the men on watch made out a light to seaward, and we weren’t long in getting up our grapnels and sitting our oars. In half an hour we were on board, and were soon sailing away from the island again.

  “The next night in we came again, and I saw that the third lieutenant’s plan was going to be adopted; in fact, I guessed so before; for the sail makers had been at work with two light ropes making a rope ladder, and the ship’s smith had got some empty shells on deck, and had made a shift to screw some iron eyes into them for fixing ropes to. The gun was taken out of the pinnace and a little mortar fixed in her, and half a dozen ropes, each a hundred fathoms long, had knots put in them every two feet.

  “The launch and the two cutters were lowered as well as the pinnace this time, and the crews were armed with cutlass and pistol. I went with them as before, as I should be wanted to guide them when they got near the village. It was a bright starlight night without haze, so that when we got close we could make out the outline of the cliffs, and could see the thick wood growing on the top. When we got within about a hundred yards of the cliffs the boat stopped rowing.