The two aftermost guns were accordingly once more very carefully pointed and fired, Captain Staunton giving the word as before. But by some mischance the muzzles were pointed a trifle too high, and both charges flew harmlessly over the boats, tearing up the water a few yards astern of them. The pirates, upon this unexpected piece of—to them—good fortune, raised a frantic cheer of delight, and, bending at their oars until they seemed about to snap them, dashed eagerly at the landing-place.
There was no time to reload the guns, so, seizing his weapons and calling upon all hands to follow him, the skipper hastily scrambled over the schooner’s bulwarks, and, making his way to the ground, rushed forward to meet the enemy, who had by this time effected a landing.
The two opposing forces met within half a dozen yards of the water’s edge, and then ensued a most desperate and sanguinary struggle. The pirates had by this time pretty nearly guessed at the audacious designs of those to whom they were opposed. They had seen enough to know not only that an escape was meditated, but that it was also proposed to carry off the schooner—that beautiful craft which their own hands had so largely assisted to construct, and in which they had confidently expected to sail forth upon a career of unbounded plunder and licence, in full reliance that her speed would insure to them complete immunity from punishment for their nefarious deeds. Such unheard-of audacity was more than enough to excite their anger to the pitch of frenzy, and they fought like demons, not only for revenge, but also for the salvation of the schooner. But if these were the motives which spurred them on to the encounter, their adversaries were actuated by incentives of a still higher character. They fought for the life and liberty, not only of themselves, but also of the weak defenceless women, whose only trust under God was in them; and if the pirates rushed furiously to the onset, they were met with a cool, determined resolution, which was more than a balance for overpowering numbers. Captain Staunton looked eagerly among the crowd of ruffianly faces for that of Ralli, determined to avenge with his own hand the multitudinous wrongs and insults which this man had heaped upon him and his dearest ones; but the Greek was nowhere to be seen. On the skipper’s right was Lance, and on his left Dickinson, the former fully occupying the attention of at least three opponents by the marvellous play of his cutlass-blade, whilst the latter brandished with terrible effect a heavy crow-bar which he had hurriedly snatched up on being summoned to the fight. Rex and Brook were both working wonders also. Bowles was fighting as only a true British seaman can fight in a good cause; and Dale, with a courage which excited his own most lively surprise, was handling his cutlass and pistol as though he had used the weapons all his life. Steadily, and inch by inch, the pirates were driven back in spite of their superior numbers; and at last, after a fight of some twenty minutes, they finally broke and fled before a determined charge of their adversaries, rushing headlong to their boats and leaving their dead and wounded behind them.
Captain Staunton did not follow them up, although the two whale-boats still lay moored at the landing as they had left them. He was anxious to avail himself of the advantage already gained in making good the escape of his own party rather than to risk further losses by an attempt to inflict additional punishment upon his adversaries. Besides, that might possibly follow later on when they had got the schooner afloat. His first act, therefore, after the flight of the pirates, was to muster his forces and ascertain the extent of the casualties.
The list was a heavy one.
In the first place, nine of the little band were missing at the muster. Bowles presented himself with his left arm shattered by a pistol bullet; Brook was suffering from a severe scalp-wound; and every one of the others had a wound or contusion of some sort, which, whilst it did not incapacitate them for work, was a voucher that they had not shrunk from taking their part manfully in the fight.
This first hasty examination over, an anxious search was instituted for the missing. The first man found was Dickinson, dead, his body covered with wounds, and a bullet-hole in the centre of his forehead. Near him lay Dale, bleeding and insensible, shot through the body; and a little further on Bob was found, also insensible, with a cutlass gash across the forehead. Then Dick Sullivan was found dead, with his skull cloven to the eyes; and near him, also dead, one of the seamen of the Galatea. And lastly, at some distance from the others, Ned Masters, with another seaman from the Galatea, and two of the escaped prisoners, were found all close together, severely wounded, and surrounded by a perfect heap of dead and wounded pirates. These four, it seemed, had somehow become separated from the rest of their party, and had been surrounded by a band of pirates. This made a list of three killed and six severely wounded.
The latter were gently raised in the arms of their less injured comrades and taken with all speed on board the schooner, where they were turned over for the present to the care of the ladies; while those who were still able to work resumed operations underneath the ship’s bottom.
Another quarter of an hour’s hard work, and then Lance’s voice was heard ordering one hand to jump on board the schooner and look out for a line.
“All right!” exclaimed Bob’s voice from the deck; “heave it up here, Mr Evelin.”
“What! you there, Robert? Glad to hear it, my fine fellow. Just go forward; look out for the line, and, when you have it, haul taut and make fast securely.”
“All right,” answered Bob with his head over the bows; “heave!”
The line, a very slender one, was thrown up, and Bob, gathering in the slack, and noticing that it led from somewhere ahead of the schooner, bowsed it well taut and securely belayed it. He knew at once what it was.
“Hurrah!” he shouted joyously. “That means that we are nearly ready for launching.”
Bob’s unexpected reappearance, it may be explained, was due to the fact that he had been merely stunned, and had speedily recovered consciousness under the ministering hands of his gentle friends in the cabin, upon which, though his head ached most violently, he lost no time in returning to duty.
Lance now made a second careful inspection of the cradle; and upon the completion of his round he pronounced that, though the structure was a somewhat rough-and-ready affair, it would do; that is to say, it would bear the weight of the schooner during the short time she was sliding off the ways, and that was all they wanted.
“And now comes the wedging-up, I s’pose, sir?” remarked Poole interrogatively.
“Wedging-up?” returned Lance with a joyous laugh. “No, thank you, Poole; we’ll manage without that. Do you see these two pieces of wood here in each keel-block? Well, they are wedges. You have only to draw them out and the top of the block will be lowered sufficiently to allow the schooner to rest entirely in the cradle. Get a maul, Poole, and you and I will start forward, whilst you, Kit, with another hand, commence aft. Knock out the wedges on both sides as you come to them, and work your way forward until you meet us. The rest of you had better go on board and see that everything is clear and ready for launching.”
“When you’re quite ready to launch, let me know, if you please, Mr Evelin, and I’ll go and light the fuse that’s to blow up the battery,” said Bob.
“Ah! to be sure,” answered Lance, “I had forgotten that. You may go up now if you like, Bob, and I’ll give you a call when we’re ready.”
Bob thereupon set off on his mission of destruction, while Lance and Poole with a couple of mauls began to knock out the wedges which Evelin, foreseeing from the very inception of the work some such emergency as the present, had introduced in the construction of the keel-blocks.
In a few minutes both parties met near the middle of the vessel, and the last pair of wedges were knocked out.
“That’s a good job well over,” exclaimed Poole; “and precious glad I am now that I thought of soaping them ways this morning. I knowed this here business must come afore long, and I detarmined to get as far ahead with the work as possible. Now I s’pose, sir, we’re all ready?”
“Yes, I think so,”
answered Lance, “but I’ll just go forward and take a look along the keel to see that she is clear everywhere.”
He accordingly did so, and had the gratification of seeing by the still brilliant light of the fires that the keel was a good six inches clear of the blocks, fore and aft.
“All clear!” he shouted. “Now, go on board, everybody. Light the fuse, Robert, and come on board as soon as possible.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Bob from the not very distant battery.
A tiny spark of light appeared for an instant in the darkness high up on the face of the rock as our hero struck a match, and in another couple of minutes he was running nimbly up the steep plank leading from the rocks beneath to the schooner’s deck.
“Kick down that plank, Robert, my lad, and see that it falls clear of everything,” said Lance. “Are we all clear fore and aft?”
“All clear, sir,” came the hearty reply from various parts of the deck.
“Are you ready with the axe forward there, Kit?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Then cut.”
A dull cheeping thud of the axe was immediately heard, accompanied by a sharp twang as the tautly strained line parted; then followed the sound of the shores falling to the ground; there was a gentle jar, and the schooner began to move.
“She moves!—she moves!” was the cry. “Hurrah! Now she gathers way.”
“Yes,” shouted Lance, joyously. “She’s going. Success to the Petrel”—as he shivered to pieces on the stem-head a bottle of wine which the steward, anxious that the launch should be shorn of none of its honours, had brought up from the cabin and hastily thrust into his hand. “Three cheers for the saucy Petrel, my lads—hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”
The three cheers rang lustily out upon the still air of the breathless night as the schooner shot with rapidly increasing velocity down the ways and finally plunged into the mirrorlike waters of the bay, dipping her stern deeply and ploughing up a smooth glassy furrow of water fringed at its outer edge with a coruscating border of vivid phosphorescent light.
“The boats—the boats again!” suddenly shouted Bowles, as the schooner, now fairly afloat, shot rapidly stern-foremost away from the rock—“Good God! they are right in our track; we shall cut them in two.”
“That is their look-out,” grimly responded Captain Staunton; “if they had been wise they would have accepted their defeat and retired to the shore; as, however, they have not done so, they must take the consequences. Remember, lads, not a man of them must be suffered to come on board.”
A warning shout from the helmsman of the pinnace announced his sudden discovery of the danger which threatened the boats, and he promptly jammed his helm hard a-starboard. The launch was on his port side; and the result was a violent collision between the two boats, the pinnace striking the launch with such force as to send the latter clear of the schooner whilst the pinnace herself, recoiling from the shock, stopped dead immediately under the schooner’s stern. There was a sharp sudden crash as the Petrel’s rudder clove its irresistible way through the doomed boat, and a yell of dismay from its occupants, several of whom made a spring at the schooner’s taffrail, only to be remorselessly thrust off again.
“There is a chance for them yet,” said the skipper, as the schooner continued to drive astern leaving the wretches struggling in the water, “the launch has escaped; she can pick them up.”
At length the schooner’s way slackened sufficiently to enable Lance, by looking over the bow and stern, to ascertain her exact trim.
“It is perfect,” he exclaimed to Captain Staunton as he rejoined the latter near the companion, “she sits accurately down to her proper water-line everywhere, thus proving the correctness of all my calculations—a result which pleases as much as it surprises me, since I have had to depend entirely on my memory for the necessary formula. Well, Captain Staunton, my task is now finished; here is the schooner, fully rigged and fairly afloat; take charge of her, my dear sir; and may she fully answer all your expectations!”
“Thanks, Evelin; a thousand thanks!” exclaimed the skipper, heartily grasping Lance’s proffered hand. “You have indeed executed your self-imposed task faithfully and well. Let me be the mouth-piece of all our party in conveying to you our most hearty expressions of gratitude for the noble manner in which you have aided us in our great strait. To you is entirely due the credit of bringing our project thus far to a successful issue; but for your skill, courage, and resolution we might have been compelled to remain for years—Ha! what is that?”
A low rumbling roar was faintly heard in the distance, rapidly increasing in volume of sound, and breaking in with startling effect upon the breathless stillness of the night.
“It is another earthquake,” exclaimed Lance. “Thank Heaven, we are afloat! Had it caught us upon the stocks it would doubtless have shaken the cradle to pieces, and, in all probability, thus frustrated our escape.”
The ominous sound drew swiftly nearer and nearer, filling the startled air with a chaos of sound which speedily became absolutely deafening in its intensity; the waters of the bay broke first into long lines of quivering ripples, then into a confused jumble of low foaming surges; the schooner jarred violently, as though she was being dragged rapidly over a rocky bottom; there was a hideous groaning grinding sound on shore, soon mingled with that of the crashing fall of enormous masses of earth and rock, above which could still be feebly heard the piercing shriek of horror raised by the occupants of the launch. The shock passed; but was immediately followed by one of still greater intensity; the waters were still more violently agitated; the schooner was swept helplessly hither and thither, rolling heavily, and shipping great quantities of water upon her deck as the shapeless surges madly leaped and boiled and swirled around her. Finally, a long line of luminous foam was seen to be rushing rapidly down upon the schooner from the harbour’s mouth, stretching completely across the bay. As it came nearer it was apparent that this was the foaming crest of a wall of water some twelve feet in height which was rushing down the bay at railway-speed.
“Hold on, every one of you, for your lives!” hoarsely shouted the skipper, as the wave swept threateningly down upon the schooner; and the next moment it burst upon them with a savage roar.
Luckily, the Petrel’s bows were presented fairly to it, or the consequences would have been disastrous. As it was it curled in over the stem, an unbroken mass of water, filling the decks in an instant and carrying the schooner irresistibly along with it toward the shore at the bottom of the bay.
“Let go the anchor,” shouted Captain Staunton, as soon as he could get his head above water.
But before this could be done the wave had swept past, rushing with a loud thundering roar far up the beach even to the capstan-house, and then rapidly subsiding.
“Get the canvas on her at once,” ordered Captain Staunton—“close-reefed main-sail, fore-sail, and jib; we shall have some wind presently, please God, and we’ll make use of it to get out of this as speedily as possible—Merciful Heaven! what now?”
A sullen roar; a rattling crash as of a peal of heaviest thunder; and the whole scene was suddenly lit up with a lurid ruddy glow. Turning their startled glances inland, our adventurers saw that the lofty hill-top, dominating the head of the ravine, near which was situated the gold cavern, had burst open and was vomiting forth vast volumes of flame and smoke. As they looked the top of the hill visibly crumbled and melted away, the flames shot up in fiercer volumes, vast quantities of red-hot ashes, mingled with huge masses of glowing incandescent rock, were projected far into the air; a terrific storm of thunder and lightning suddenly burst forth to add new terrors to the scene; and to crown all, a new rift suddenly burst open in the side of the hill, out of which there immediately poured a perfect ocean of molten lava.
In the face of this stupendous phenomenon Captain Staunton’s order to make sail passed unheeded; the entire faculties of every man on board the schooner were wholly absorbed in awe-struck cont
emplation of the terrific spectacle.
Onward rolled the fiery flood. It wound in a zigzag serpentine course down the side of the hill, and soon reached the thick wood at its base and at the head of the valley. The stately forest withered, blazed for a brief moment, and vanished in its fatal embrace, and now it came sweeping down the steep declivity toward the bay.
This terrible sight aroused and vivified the paralysed energies of those on board the Petrel. Without waiting for a repetition of the order to make sail they sprang with panic-stricken frantic haste to cast off the gaskets, and in an incredibly short time the schooner was under canvas.
Still there was no wind. Not the faintest breath of air came to stir the flapping sails of the now gently rolling vessel; and her crew could do nothing but wait in feverish anxious expectancy for the long-delayed breeze, watching meanwhile the majestic irresistible onward sweep of that fiery deluge.
At last, thank God! there was a faint puff of wind; it came, sighed past, and died away. And now, another. The sails caught it, bellied out, flapped again, filled once more, and the Petrel gathered way. She had gradually swung round until her bow pointed straight for the capstan-house; and Captain Staunton sprang to the wheel, sending it with a single vigorous spin hard over. The breeze was still very light, and the craft responded but slowly to her helm; but at length she came up fairly upon a wind and made a short stretch to the eastward, tacking the moment that she had gathered sufficient way to accomplish the manoeuvre. She was now on the port tack, stretching obliquely across the bay in a southerly direction, when a startled call from Poole, repeated by all the rest, directed Captain Staunton’s gaze once more landward.
“Look—look—merciful powers, it is Ralli!” was Lance’s horrified exclamation as he grasped the skipper convulsively by the shoulder and pointed with a trembling hand to the shore.
The Pirate Island Page 33
