by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER XIII
TWO CAPTURES
The meal was a very short one, but the ladies, to please their rescuers,took a few spoonfuls of soup and a glass of wine. Madame Pickard and herelder daughter were too much worn out by anxiety and emotion to talk,Monsieur Pickard was no less moved, and the conversation was supportedentirely by the three officers and Louise. The young men hurried throughtheir meal, and then, saying good-night to the others, went up on deck.
"Well, never did a thing turn out better," Nat said as he lit his pipe;"it is a tremendous satisfaction that we have not lost a single man inthe affair."
"And it is no less a satisfaction," Turnbull said, "that we have given agood many of those black brutes their deserts. It was a good fight for abit."
As they were smoking, the seven white men came up in a body.
"We could not lie down, monsieur," one of them said, "till we had cometo thank you for saving us from the most frightful deaths. We had givenup all hopes even of obtaining a weapon and putting an end to ourselves,which we should certainly have done could we have got hold of a knife,after having been obliged to witness the tortures of two of ourcomrades. Had you been but ten minutes later another of us would havebeen their victim. Ah, monsieur! your voice, when you spoke at thewindow, seemed like that of an angel who had come to our relief."
"How long had you been in the woods?" Nat asked.
"Six weeks, monsieur, before the negroes found us. We had carried offsome provisions with us, but these were all consumed, and we wereobliged to go down to the plantation to search for food. We suppose thatwe were seen and followed, and the next night we were surrounded by theband you saw."
"Well, we are all very glad to have got you out of their hands, and yourendered good service when the blacks came down on us."
"We had our revenge to take," the man said, "and not one of us but wouldhave fought until he was killed."
"You have had something to eat, I hope?"
"Yes, thank you, sir."
"You had better turn in now. I don't suppose you have had much sleep oflate."
"Poor beggars," Turnbull said as the men walked away, "I wonder myselfthat they did not strangle each other, or hang themselves, or something.I am sure I should have done so rather than wait day after day till myturn came to be burnt alive, or to be cut to pieces gradually, or put todeath by any other means of slow torture."
"Yes, Turnbull, if one were quite sure that there was no possible hopeof rescue or escape; but I suppose a man never does quite give up hope.This was an example, you see, of the unlikely happening."
"What are you going to do next, Glover?"
"I don't know, I have hardly thought it out yet. You see, we can managewith this lot we have on board without much difficulty, and I don't knowthat I should be justified in going round to Cape Francois on purpose toland them. So far we have not been able to bring any news of value, andat any rate I think we might as well cruise about here a little longer.There is one thing, if we should fall in with anyone bigger thanourselves and have to fight for it, those fellows who have just gonebelow will be a valuable addition to our strength. When it comes to ahand-to-hand fight seven stout fellows might turn the scale."
"Yes, there is something in that, and I am glad you mean to keep them onboard for a bit. I think the girls will be very good fun when they havea little got over what they have gone through. The young one is a jollylittle thing, and her sister is very pretty, in spite of her short hairand boy's dress, though one had not much opportunity of forming an ideaas to whether she had any fun in her."
"I fancy it will be some time before she will feel inclined for aflirtation, Turnbull," Nat laughed. "What she has gone through, and whatshe has seen in the way of horrors, is enough to damp a girl's spiritsfor a very long time."
In the morning the ladies did not appear at breakfast.
"My wife is completely prostrated," Monsieur Pickard said, "and the twogirls are shy and do not like showing themselves until they have madeup a couple of dresses. Your steward gave them the roll of white cottonearly this morning and needles and thread, and both are very hard atwork. I hope you will excuse them, they will come out and have breakfasthere after we have done. May I ask where we are sailing now?"
"We are sailing east, monsieur. I hope that it will not inconvenienceyou to be a few days on board. My orders are to cruise up and down thecoast, and I wish therefore to go east as far as the boundary betweenthe French and Spanish portions of the island; after that I can go roundinto the bay of Hayti and land you at Port-au-Prince or Cape Francois,whichever you would prefer."
"It will make no difference whatever to us, and indeed I am sure that acruise on your beautiful little ship will be the very best thing for mywife and daughters. They will have perfect rest and sea air, and it willnot be necessary for them to tell over and over again the stories oftheir sufferings; but I lament that we should be putting you to suchpersonal inconvenience."
"I can assure you, monsieur, that you are putting us to no inconveniencewhatever. We sleep just as well in our cots as in our berths, and thesociety of the ladies and yourself will be a very great pleasure to us,for as a rule we have very small opportunity in that way."
"You speak our language very fluently, Monsieur Glover."
"I am afraid that I speak it more fluently than grammatically. I had theopportunity of picking it up by ear last year, when I was staying forsix weeks at the house of Monsieur Duchesne at Cape Francois."
"We know him well, and his charming wife and daughter," Monsieur Pickardsaid, "for we have a house there, and generally go there for threemonths every winter. Can it be that you are the officer who saved theirdaughter's life, when she was attacked by a fierce hound?"
"Yes, I had that good fortune."
"I fear that they have fallen in this terrible insurrection. We have hadno direct news from Cape Francois, but we heard that in their districtall the plantations have been destroyed and the owners murdered."
"I am happy to be able to tell you that they were saved. I was stayingthere at the time when the revolt broke out We were warned just in timeby an old nurse, Dinah."
"I remember her," Monsieur Pickard broke in, "a tall old woman."
"Yes, Monsieur Duchesne himself was in town, and madame, Myra, and I hadjust time to gain the forest. There we were joined by Dinah, who dideverything for us. Madame was attacked by fever, but fortunately Dinahknew of a very safe place of refuge. She did everything for us, fetchedup provisions, concocted medicine, and after being ten days in hiding,we were able to get them down to the town."
Both the midshipmen had a fair knowledge of French, though they were notable to speak it with Nat's ease and fluency. When the latter hadfinished, Turnbull broke in:
"Mr. Glover does not tell you, monsieur, that the cave they were in wasattacked by six negroes, led by two mulattoes, and he shot them all, northat he and the nurse carried Madame Duchesne down in a litter sometwenty miles to the town, although he had one of his ribs broken by apistol shot."
"What is the use of talking about that?" Nat said angrily. "The thingwas done and there was an end of it. There has been a lot too much saidabout it as it is."
Monsieur Pickard smiled. "Monsieur Glover is like my daughters atpresent, he is shy. He should not be so. It is right that we, hisfriends,--for we are his friends, now and for the rest of ourlives,--should know what he is. Ah, my wife and the girls will bepleased indeed to hear that their friends have escaped! They have oftensaid how sorry they were that they had not seen the young officer whorescued their friend Myra from the dog. It is strange indeed that heshould afterwards have saved her and her mother from the negroes, andshould now have so rescued us."
That evening the girls appeared on deck in snowy-white dresses, simplymade, but fitting admirably. "We have always been accustomed to cut outour own dresses," Valerie said, laughing, when Nat complimented her onthe work. "The slaves did the sewing, but we fitted each other. Ofcourse at Cape Francois we had our
dresses made for us, but on theplantation we were obliged to trust to ourselves."
One morning, three days later, as they were at breakfast, Nat stopped ashe was raising a cup to his lips. "That is a gun!" he exclaimed. "Thereis another!" and with the two middies he ran up on deck. "There is afight going on somewhere," he said as the sound of firing was againheard. "It must be six or seven miles away, somewhere beyond thatheadland. At any rate we will hold on and have a look at them. With thislight wind it will take us from an hour and a half to two hours beforewe are up with them, so we may as well finish our breakfast in comfort."
"What is it, Monsieur Glover! Are those noises really the sound ofguns?"
"There is no doubt about it. There is a fight going on seven or eightmiles away. We should hear the sound more plainly were it not that thereis a headland between us and the vessels engaged."
"Who can they be?" Madame Pickard said.
"A pirate and a merchantman, no doubt. None of the European nations areat war, but the seas swarm with piratical craft of one kind or another.The small ones content themselves with plundering native coastingvessels, the larger ones attack ships from or to Europe. The _Orpheus_,to which I belonged at that time, last year rooted out one of theirworst nests. They had no fewer than four ships. We were lucky enough tocatch one of them, and learned where the rendezvous was, and fortunatelyfound the other three at home, and destroyed them and theirstorehouses."
"Are you going on in that direction now?" Valerie asked.
"Yes, we are going to have a look at them. If the trader is making agood fight of it, our arrival may turn the scale; if we arrive too lateand find the enemy too big for us, we can run away; in a light wind likethis there are very few vessels that could catch us. It is probable thatwe should not interfere were it not for the possibility that we may bein time to save some of the passengers and crew of the merchantman. Shemust be a vessel of some size, judging from the sound of her guns. Evenif she has surrendered before we get there, and we find that we are inany way a match for the pirate, we might, after defeating her, save atleast some of the captives. As a rule, these scoundrels, when allopposition has ceased, confine the prisoners in the hold, and afteremptying the prize of everything valuable, scuttle her, and of coursedrown all on board. In that way all traces of their crime are lost,whereas if they killed them some of the bodies might float inshore, orif they burnt the ship the smoke might bring down any cruiser thathappened to be in the neighborhood.
"I am sorry that you are on board, ladies."
"Oh, do not think of us!" Madame Pickard exclaimed. "After the wonderfuldeliverance that we have had, I am sure that none of us would mind anyrisk if there is a chance of saving others in as dire peril as wewere."
The two girls and Monsieur Pickard warmly agreed. "Please put usaltogether out of consideration," the latter said. "Even if we knew thatit was probable we should all lose our lives we should not hesitate. Weare not, I hope, any of us, afraid of death. It was the kind of deaththat we were terrified at."
"I thank you all," Nat said gravely. "I shall not fight unless I thinkthat there is at any rate a fair chance of victory."
On going on deck when breakfast was finished, Nat ordered the magazineto be opened and ammunition brought up. The wind had freshened a little,and the schooner was going faster through the water; and in threequarters of an hour after hearing the first gun they neared thepromontory.
"I am afraid it is all over," Nat said to the ladies, who had also comeon deck; "there has not been a gun fired for the past two or threeminutes. However, we shall soon see."
On rounding the point they saw two vessels lying side by side, a mileand a half distant, and about a mile from shore. One was a barque,evidently a large merchantman; the other a brigantine. There was noquestion that the latter was a pirate, and the other her prize. Thesailors, after a glance at them, turned their eyes anxiously towards Natfor orders. The latter stood quietly examining the ships through hisglass.
"She mounts five guns a side, and I should say that they are about thesame weight as our own," he said to Turnbull; "and from the men swarmingon her deck and that of her prize she must have nearly, if not quite,three times our strength, even counting the Frenchmen in."
"She is too big to fight squarely, sir," Turnbull reluctantly agreed. "Iam afraid she is altogether too tough a customer for us; and yet onehates the thought of leaving them to complete their devil's work ontheir prize."
"Yes, we can't think of doing that, Mr. Turnbull. The first thing to dowill be to draw them off from her."
"But they would be sure to leave some of their men in possession ofher."
"Well, if they do, there will be so many the fewer for us to fight. Weare within a mile now, I should say?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then train the two forward guns on them, and let them see that we meanfighting."
A cheer broke from the sailors clustered round the guns as Turnbull gavethe order.
"Now, ladies," Nat said, "you can stop to see the effect of our firstshot, and then I must ask you to go down on to the lower deck. Sam willshow you the way and take some cushions down for you; you will be out ofdanger there."
As he spoke, the two guns which were already loaded were fired, and themen gave a cheer as two white patches appeared on the side of thebrigantine.
"Please hurry down, ladies," Nat said, checking the entreaty which hesaw they were going to make. "It won't be long before they answer us."
"Give them another round, lads!" he said, as they reluctantly obeyed hisorders. "Get them in if you can before he is ready."
Busy as they were, the pirates had not observed the schooner until herguns were fired. With shouts of alarm they ran back to their own ship,but these were succeeded by exclamations of anger and surprise when theysaw how small was the craft that had thus intruded into the affair. Bythe captain's orders twenty of the crew, under his first mate, returnedto the deck of the prize; a portion of the men ran to the guns, othersthrew off the grapnels fastening them to the prize. Before they wereready to fire, two more shots from the schooner crashed into thebrigantine, one passing through the bulwarks, killing three men andwounding several others with the splinters. The other struck her withina few inches of the water-line.
The schooner at once bore up, discharging the guns on the starboard sideas she came round, and laying her course as close to the wind as shecould be jammed, showed her stern to the pirate. Two of his guns forwardwere fired, others could not be brought to bear. The Arrow was nowalmost retracing her course, for the wind was west-nor'-west, and shecould just follow the line of coast.
"Here they come after us!" Turnbull said, rubbing his hands, "as savageas bees whose hive has been disturbed."
"Now, Mr. Turnbull, get the two guns right aft, so as to fire over thetaffrail. We must see if we cannot knock some of her spars away. As soonas you have moved the guns let all hands, except those serving them, goforward and lie down there. The weight of the guns will put her ratherby the stern, and I don't want to let that fellow come any nearer to us.She is in her best trim now."
As soon as the guns were ready they opened fire. The brigantine answeredwith her bow-chaser, but, as she was obliged to yaw each time shebrought it to bear, she presently ceased firing.
"We are gaining on her, sir," Lippincott said, as he watched the piratethrough his glass.
"Yes, and sailing fully a point nearer to the wind than she does. Get astay-sail fastened to a rope, and drop it over close to the bow. I don'twant to run away from her. If she found that we were too fast for hershe would give up the chase, and go back to the prize. I want her togain just enough to encourage her to keep on. She is a fast craft, butwe are faster. We shall be able to manage her, providing she does notknock away any of our spars."
The start the schooner had made had at first widened the distancebetween them, and there was now a mile and a quarter of water separatingthem. The brigantine was hulled several times and her sails pierced, buther spars were still in
tact. She was permitted to gain until she waslittle more than half a mile astern, but the schooner had weathered onher, and was now nearly half a mile to windward.
"If we had an open sea on this side instead of the land," Turnbull said,"and were to cut away that sail, they would not see us again."
"No; they must have come to the same conclusion. As it is, they no doubtthink that our clawing out to windward is of no advantage to us. Now,get another gun over to the larboard side. It is lucky that there is aspare port there. We must make an effort to knock one of his spars out,or he may cripple us." For by this time the brigantine had again openedfire. "Let the three best shots we have got lay the guns on hermainmast. Tell them to train them rather high, so that if they miss themark they may cut one of the halyards, which will give us all the startwe want."
The guns were run into their position on the broadside. "Don't hurryover it," Nat said; "let each fire as his gun comes to bear." There wasa crash and a cry as he spoke; a ball had gone through the Arrow fromside to side, tearing jagged holes through her bulwarks, one of thesailors being struck to the deck by a splinter. No one spoke, every eyebeing fixed on the guns. These were fired almost together. There was apause for a second or two, and then a burst of cheering as the gaff ofthe great mainsail of the brigantine was seen to collapse.
"It is hit close to the jaws," Turnbull, whose glass was levelled on thepirates, exclaimed.
"Cut away that sail in the water!" Nat shouted. "Up with your helm,men, and bring her round. That is right," he went on as the schoonercame up into the wind and payed off on the other tack. "Now, slack awayher sheets!"
Three guns were vengefully fired by the pirate, but the sudden change inthe schooner's position disconcerted their aim, and the shot flew wide.Without waiting for orders, the seamen at two of the guns ran them overto the starboard side, and, all working at the highest pressure, pouredshot after shot into the brigantine, which answered but slowly, asnumbers of the men had run aloft to get the sail down to repair damages.Before she was under way again the schooner had left her a mile behind.She was now on her best point of sailing, while the brigantine was tosome extent crippled by the mainsail setting badly, and by the time theheadland was again passed the schooner was fully two miles ahead. Hercrew had for some time been puzzled at the action being so abruptlyconcluded, and Turnbull had even ventured to say:
"I should think, sir, we should have a fair chance with her now."
"Not a very good chance. We have been lucky, but with ten guns to ourfour, and her strong crew of desperate men, she would be a very awkwardcustomer. We can think of her later on. My plan is to retake the prizebefore she can come up. It is not likely that they have killed the crewyet, and I expect the captain told those left behind to leave things asthey were until he returned. We may scarcely be a match for thebrigantine, but the prize and we together should be able to give a goodaccount of ourselves."
"Splendid, sir!" Turnbull exclaimed joyously; "that is a grand idea."
"Have the guns loaded with grape," Nat said quietly, "and run two ofthem over to the other side. We will go outside the prize, bring ourcraft up into the wind, and shoot her up inside her, and give them onebroadside and then board. Tell the men to have their pistols andcutlasses ready, and distribute the boarding-pikes among the Frenchmen."
As soon as they rounded the point they could see by their glasses thatthere was a sudden commotion on the deck of the merchantman.
"They did not expect to see us back first," Lippincott laughed.
"Even now, I should think, they are expecting to see the brigantineclose behind us in chase, and don't suspect what we are up to. Don'thead straight for her," he said to the helmsman, "take us a couple oflengths outside her."
The pirates, indeed, were completely deceived, but when at last they sawthat the brigantine did not appear, they ran over to the guns. It was,however, too late. Two or three of these were discharged as the schoonerpassed, but beyond making holes in her sails no damage was done, and oneof the schooner's guns poured in a volley of grape. When she was two orthree lengths ahead her helm was put hard down. She flew round and justcaught the wind on the other tack, gliding up alongside the merchantman,the three guns being discharged in succession as the two vesselstouched.
The grapnels were thrown, and the sailors and Frenchmen leapt on to herdeck headed by the three officers. Nearly half the pirates had beenkilled or wounded by the four discharges of grape. The remainder madebut a poor fight of it, and were cut down to a man.
"Off with the hatches, men!" Nat shouted. "Run down and release thecrew."
He himself ran aft into the saloon. Here six gentlemen and eight or tenladies were lying bound hand and foot. Several of the men were wounded.Nat at once cut the cords.
"THE CAPTAIN OF THE PIRATES SHOOK HIS FIST IN DEFIANCE."]
"You are safe," he said. "The ship has been retaken by his majesty'sschooner _Arrow_, but we have not done with the brigantine yet, and anyof you who have weapons and can use them may lend a hand."
Without waiting to listen to the chorus of cries of gratitude, he ranout again. A minute later a number of seamen poured up on deck. Many ofthem were wounded.
"How many are there of you?" he asked an officer among them.
"There are thirty of us," he said; "we had lost nearly half our crewbefore they boarded us. The captain was killed early in the fight, aswas the first officer."
"Well, sir, set your men to load the guns at once. There is thebrigantine just coming round the point. Monsieur Pickard, will youremain here with your party and help the sailors? Get your sails sheetedhome, sir!" he went on to the ship's officer. "Is your vessel a fastone?"
"Yes, but she is not so fast as that brigantine."
"That is of no consequence," Nat said. "Get every sail you can on her.Now get twenty of our men on board again, Mr. Lippincott, and on secondthoughts I will take five of the Frenchmen. Mr. Turnbull, you willremain on board in command of this ship with the other five of our men.My endeavour will be to knock away one of her masts. Do you keep asclose as you can to us, and we will board her together, one on eachside. If she knocks away one of our spars, I shall as far as possiblecome back to meet you, and if she follows us we will fight hertogether."
"I understand, sir."
"The moment we push off, get your head sails aback and put her on thewind so as to get out of our way. I shall fill her off on the other tackand then come round and join you. We will keep together until we seewhether she means to fight or run. Remember, the great thing is toknock a spar out of her."
So saying, he leapt on to the deck of the schooner, and Turnbull's voicewas at once heard shouting the order, "Haul aft the weather sheets ofthe jibs;" and in a minute the two vessels were gliding away from eachother on opposite tacks. Then the _Arrow_ was brought round and followedthe _Thames_, which was the name of the merchantman. The brigantine wasnow three quarters of a mile away. Suddenly she was seen to change hercourse. As she wore round she presented her broadside to the twovessels, and her five guns puffed out together. The reply, both from themerchantman and the _Arrow_, followed almost simultaneously, and a cheerrang out from both ships as the pirate's bowsprit was seen to snap off.
"Place yourself two or three cables' length from his larboard quarter,"Nat shouted.
Turnbull, who had leapt on to the rail to see the result of thebroadside, waved his hand.
"Down topsails!" Nat shouted, "she will be handier without them."
In a moment the two great sails came fluttering down. Turnbull followedthe example, and the men ran up the ratlines and furled some of theupper sails. Deprived of her head sails, the pirate was unmanageable,and the two vessels speedily ran up and laid themselves a couple ofhundred yards from his quarters and opened a steady fire. The piratesendeavoured to drag two of their guns right aft, but the volleys ofgrape poured into them were too much for them, and although theircaptain was seen to shoot two of the men, the rest ran forward. Thehelmsman deserted his now useless post.<
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"Give her one more broadside," Nat shouted to Turnbull, "and then run inand board."
The captain of the pirates, mad with rage, leapt on to the taffrail andshook his fist in defiance. At that moment two rifles cracked out fromthe merchantman, and he fell forward into the sea. The effect of thestorm of grape from the three guns of the schooner, and the four fromthe trader, among the men huddled up in the bow of the pirate wasterrible, but knowing that their lives were forfeited if they were takenprisoners, none made a movement aft to haul down the black flag thatstill floated from the peak. In two or three minutes their antagonistswere alongside; a volley of musketry was poured in, and then the crewsof both ships leapt on to the deck. The pirates, who were now reduced toabout thirty men, rushed to meet them, determining to sell their livesdearly. But the odds were against them; they missed the voice of theircaptain to encourage them, and when twenty of their number had fallen,the remainder threw down their arms.
"Let no man stir a foot to go below," Nat shouted, remembering theexplosion in the pirate's hold, and fearing that one of them might makestraight for the magazine. He had not used his pistols in the fight, andnow stood with one in each hand pointing threateningly to enforce theorder.
"Mr. Lippincott, take four men below and close and securely fasten themagazine."
The middy ran down, and returned in two or three minutes to report thathe had executed the order.
"Tie those fellows' feet and hands," Nat said, "and carry them down intothe hold."
When this was done he was able to look round. The deck was a perfectshambles. The brigantine, as he afterwards heard, carried originallyeighty hands. Ten of these had been either killed or seriously woundedin the fight with the _Thames_, and twenty had been killed on board thatbarque when she was retaken. Forty lay dead or dying on the deck. One ofthe Frenchmen had fallen, six of the sailors and three Frenchmen hadbeen severely wounded, Turnbull somewhat seriously wounded, andLippincott slightly. Monsieur Pickard, and the male passengers on boardthe _Thames_, had all joined the boarders.
Two of them had previously done good service with their rifles. Had notthe pirate leader been killed, the fight would have been even moredesperate. One of the passengers was, fortunately, a surgeon. He at onceset to work attending to the sailors' wounds, and after he had bandagedthem he examined those of the pirates. These had for the most part beenkilled outright, and of the wounded there were but four or five with anyprospect of recovery. These he first attended to, while the otherpassengers carried water to the dying men.
"Now, my lads," Nat said, "clear the decks of the dead, and get up anawning and carry those who are alive into the shade."
All the dead pirates were thrown over without ceremony, the body of theFrenchman being laid down by his compatriots by one of the guns forproper burial in the evening. As soon as the fight was over, MonsieurPickard--who, after the capture of the _Thames_, had gone below toassure his wife and daughters that all was going on well, and that theyhad saved nine ladies and six gentlemen from the hands of thepirates--hurried down with the welcome news that the fight was over andthe brigantine captured.
"You can go up to the cabin," he said, "but don't come on deck till Icome down and tell you that everything has been made clean and tidy. Youwill be glad to hear that, although we have several wounded, FrancoisAmond is the only man that has been killed."
One of the passengers of the _Thames_ had carried similar news to theladies there. The crews of both were at once set to work to wash decks,and in an hour the holy-stones had obliterated the worst signs of theconflict, though it would require many more scrubbings before the stainsof blood entirely disappeared. All this time the vessels had remainedside by side, and the ladies now ventured on to the decks of the_Thames_ and _Arrow_.
"What do you intend to do, sir?" one of the passengers asked Nat.
"I shall sail at once for Jamaica," he said. "We shall want some morehands, and I must at present borrow a few from you, for my own men arenot sufficiently strong to navigate my own craft and the prize. The windis favourable, and if it holds as it is we shall be at Kingston inforty-eight hours, so there will be no great loss of time."
He then crossed to the _Arrow_.
"I must congratulate you most heartily on your success," Madame Pickardsaid. "It is wonderful indeed that you should have taken both thesevessels. The pirate ship is, I should think, three times as big as youare, and the other looks a giant by her side."
"Yes, she is six hundred tons, and the brigantine is about threehundred. However, it has all gone very fortunately. In the first place,we have rescued some fifteen gentlemen and ladies, and twice as manyseamen, from the death that they would certainly have met with; and inthe next place, we have thrashed this pirate; we shall get both creditand prize-money, and a good sum for the recapture of the _Thames_, whichthe chief officer has just told me carries a very valuable cargo.Lastly, I am happy to say that, although several of the crew areinjured, I have not lost a single life among them. I am sorry that oneof your men fell in the fight."
"But they have sadly spoiled the appearance of your ship," ValeriePickard said. "There are three or four great holes along the side, and aball has gone through your cabin, and the sails, which were so white andpretty, have lots of holes in them."
"Yes, we shall want a good many new cloths," he said; "but that is avery minor matter."
"Monsieur Turnbull is hurt, I hear!"
"Yes, madame; happily it is not very serious--a blow which he onlypartly parried struck him on the shoulder. It looks a very seriouswound, but the doctor says there is no need for any great uneasinessabout him; and being seriously wounded in action has its advantages, asit always counts towards promotion. Mr. Lippincott has had one of hisears nearly slashed off, and is not pretty to look at at present, withhis head done up in bandages, but the surgeon thinks that, as it wasattended to so soon, it is likely that it will heal up."
"And you have escaped altogether, Monsieur Glover?" Louise said.
"Yes, for once I have had good luck. Hitherto I have always come out ofa fight more or less damaged; this time I have escaped without ascratch."
"I should feel very proud if I were you," the girl said, "at having doneso much with such a small ship--and you so young, too! Why, you do notlook more than a year or two older than Valerie, and you have rescued usand all the people on the other ship, and taken a pirate and the vesselthey had captured. It seems almost impossible. And you look so quiet andnice, too."
"Louise, you should not talk like that," her mother corrected.
Nat said gravely:
"Mademoiselle, do you know that you are talking to the commander of oneof his majesty's ships on his own quarter-deck, where he is, as it were,the monarch of all he surveys, and might inflict all sorts of terriblepunishments upon you for your want of respect?"
The girl laughed merrily.
"I am not afraid," she said, "not one little bit, and I don't see whyyou should mind being told that you are young and quiet-looking andnice, when you are."
"I do not mind in the least," he said, "and certainly I am young; but Ican assure you that my former captain would not tell you that I wasquiet, for I had the reputation of being the most troublesome middy onboard his frigate. But, you see, responsibility has sobered me, and Ican assure you that there is a great deal of responsibility incommanding a small craft like this, which has nothing but her speed andher luck to rely on if she happens to fall in with a strongly-armedvessel."
"How can you say that, monsieur," Valerie said indignantly, "when youhave taken this pirate, which is ever so much stronger than you are?"
"There may be a little good management in it, but more luck,mademoiselle. If one of his shot had damaged me instead of one of minedamaging him, we should all have had our throats cut two hours ago."
"I don't believe it," she said. "I believe that you would have beatenhim anyhow."
"Ladies very often think what they wish," he said with a laugh, "and nodoubt we should
have fought to the last; but I can assure you that weshould have had no chance with them, and the best I could have done foryou would have been to have fired the last shot of my pistol into themagazine."
"Please don't talk about it," Madame Pickard said with a shudder. "Andnow I suppose that you have had fighting enough, and are going to carryus quietly into port?"
"Yes, madame, to Jamaica; but if you would prefer to be landed at CapeFrancois or Port-au-Prince I shall be happy to give you a passage backagain."
"We do not want to go there at all, but my husband will go to wind uphis affairs, and sell his house there. We have been talking it over, andagree that we should never like to go back to the estate again. Even ifthings did quiet down the memories are too terrible; and, besides,having once broken out, the blacks might do so again at any time."
"I think you are perfectly right, madame; but I am afraid you will notget much for your estate."
"My husband thinks that, although no white man would buy it, there areplenty of mulattoes who would give, not its real value, but a certainamount, for it. Many of them are rich men who have already largeplantations. Ours was one of the most valuable on the island, and withthe title from us a purchaser would not be afraid of being disturbedwhen the soldiers arrive and put down the insurrection; while, even ifthis should never be done, the negroes, with whom the mulattoes are nowfriends, would not interfere with him. My husband thinks that perhaps hewill get a third of its value, which would be sufficient to keep us allcomfortably in France, or wherever we may settle; but our best resourceis that we have the whole of last season's produce stored in ourmagazines at Port-au-Prince."
It was not until the next afternoon that the absolutely necessaryrepairs to the three vessels were completed, the holes near thewater-line covered by planks over which pitched canvas was nailed, theropes shot away replaced by new ones, and the brigantine's gaffrepaired. Then sail was hoisted again, and the three vessels set sailfor Kingston, where they arrived on the evening of the third day afterstarting. No little excitement was caused in the harbour when the_Arrow_, with her sails and sides bearing marks of the engagement,sailed in, followed by the brigantine flying the British ensign over theblack flag, and the _Thames_ with the same flags, but with the additionof the merchant ensign under the black flag, following her. There weretwo or three ships of war in the port, and the crews saluted the _Arrow_with hearty cheers. The flag-ship at once ran up the signal for hercommander to come on board, and, leaving Lippincott to see to theoperation of anchoring, Nat ordered the gig to be lowered, and, takinghis place in it, was rowed to the flag-ship.
