The pirate schooner--a craft of apparently two hundred tons or more,
very long and low on the water, painted dead black, with immensely tall,
wand-like masts, and an enormous spread of canvas--was now slipping
along fast through the water, heading to the northward, and some six
miles dead to windward of us. It was a long start, and I foresaw that,
fast as the little _Wasp_ undoubtedly was, unless something quite
unforeseen occurred, a good many things might happen before we could get
alongside the enemy. Why such a big powerful vessel--she showed seven
ports of a side, and there was something suspiciously like a long
32-pounder on her forecastle--should turn tail so ignominiously and run
from a little shrimp of a craft like the _Wasp_ I could not imagine,
though I was to receive enlightenment upon that point before long. Our
immediate business, however, was not with her, but with the big ship
that was coming yawing down the wind toward us.
She was now about five miles distant, and as she came driving along, now
stem-on, with her square canvas full, and anon sweeping round until she
presented one or the other of her broadsides to us, with only her
fore-and-aft canvas drawing, we were enabled to get a very good view of
her. She was a big craft, of from nine hundred to a thousand tons,
perhaps, and at a distance might very well have been mistaken for a
man-o'-war. But she was evidently not that, for she showed only four
guns of a side upon her upper-deck, and they were but small, apparently
not more than 6-pounders. She was very heavily rigged, with a wide
spread to her lower yards, but the heads of her square sails narrowed
away to such an extent that her royal-yards looked to be scarcely more
than ten feet long. Her hull was painted bright yellowish-brown, with a
broad white ribbon round it, and her bottom was painted white, with a
black stripe between it and the brown, but below the water-line the
white paint was foul with barnacles and sea grass, as we could see when
she rolled. She carried, by way of figurehead, the image of a female
saint, very elaborately painted and gilded, with a good deal of gilded
scroll-work round about it, and her stern and quarters were also
elaborately carved and gilded. Her topsides tumbled home enormously,
her width on deck being little more than half that at her water-line.
Surmounting her stern there was a great poop lantern, almost big enough
for a man to stand in. A rough painting of the Crucifixion adorned her
fore-topsail. She showed no colours; but she was Spanish, beyond a
doubt, and most probably, as I had at first surmised, a West Indiaman.
We manoeuvred the _Wasp_ in such a manner as to close with the stranger,
as nearly as possible without incurring the risk of being run into and
sunk by her in one of her wild sheers, and at the proper moment the
schooner was hove-to, the quarter-boat lowered, and with four hands in
her, armed with pistols and cutlasses, I jumped in and pulled away for
the other craft.
Carefully watching her movements, we contrived to get alongside and hook
on without very much difficulty; and then all hands of us swarmed up her
towering side and tumbled in on deck, with our drawn pistols in our
hands, for there was never any knowing what ghastly trick a pirate might
play, or what fiendish trap he might set--they were capable of anything
and everything--therefore it behoved us to be wary; but nothing
happened. There was not a soul on deck to interfere with us, or to
demand our business; and the first thing we did was to put the helm hard
over and lay the mainyard aback as she came to the wind. Then I
ascended to the poop and took a comprehensive glance round me.
The circumstance that thrust itself most obtrusively forward, demanding
immediate notice, was that the main hatchway was gaping wide-open, with
a tackle dangling down it from the main-stay, evidently for the purpose
of hoisting cargo out of the hold. All round the hatchway the deck was
littered with bales and cases of every description, some of them intact,
as they had come up out of the hold, while others had been ripped or
wrenched open and their contents scattered hither and thither about the
decks. There was a cask lying on its bilge, its head knocked out, and
perhaps a gallon or so of port wine still in it, while all round about
it the deck was dark, wet, and reeking with the fumes of the spilt wine.
But there were other and more sinister stains than those of wine on the
planks--there were great splashes of blood here and there on bulwarks
and deck, much of which was partially hidden by the scattered cargo; but
the scene was not nearly so sanguinary or revolting as I had expected to
find it, for there were no ensanguined, mutilated corpses to shock the
eye, or harrow the imagination, by the sight of their hurts.
Nor, for that matter, were there any living people on board the ship,
either in cabins or forecastle, although there was abundant evidence
that both had had their full complement of occupants. The forecastle,
for example, was lumbered up with the chests of the seamen, boots, caps,
and various other articles of clothing lying scattered about the deck,
while oilskins, sou'westers, and more clothing hung from pegs and nails
driven into the timber walls; the bedding in the bunks also was
disarranged, as though the men had just rolled out of them; and a large
copper slush lamp, suspended from a deck beam, still burned, smoking and
flaring to the roll of the ship upon the swell. The confusion here was
merely normal, and such as is always to be found in a ship's forecastle;
but the grand saloon presented a very different and terribly suggestive
appearance. The whole place was a scene of dreadful disorder and
violence, a carouse seeming to have been succeeded by a life and death
struggle. For the massive mahogany table was bare, while the cloth that
should have covered it lay upon the carpeted deck in a confused heap in
the midst of a medley of smashed decanters, glasses, and viands of
various descriptions, while the reek of spilled wine, mingled with the
odour of gunpowder and tobacco smoke, filled the air; one or two of the
handsome mirrors that adorned the cabin were smashed, the cracks
radiating from the point of fracture right out to the frame; two or
three discharged pistols and a broken sword lay among the debris on the
carpet; some of the rich velvet cushions had been torn off the locker
and then kicked under the table; and a number of men's, women's, and
children's garments lay scattered about the apartment. Nor was this
all. The doors of the staterooms on either side of the saloon stood
wide-open, hooked back to the bulkheads; and here again the bedding was
all in disorder, as though the occupants had leapt hurriedly from the
bunks under the influence of some sudden alarm; trunks and boxes were
standing open--some of them overturned--and their contents scattered all
over the cabin, as though the receptacles had been rummaged in search of
jewellery or money, or both. And the soft white linen sheets that
formed part of the bedding in one of the cabins was deeply and horribly
smeared with scarcely dry blood, with which also the mattress underneath
seemed to be soaked! The captain's cabin--or what I took to be such--
had likewise been rifled, the charts having been taken from the racks,
the chronometer from its padded well in the book-case, and the sextant
had vanished, as well as the ship's papers. But we were able to
ascertain her name and port of registry, for it was engraved upon the
broad brass rim of her steering wheel, and upon her bell: "_Santa
Brigitta_, Santander."
It was evident that there were no living persons on board this fine but
ruthlessly despoiled ship, or if there were, they must be in hiding; and
with the view of testing this latter point I now swung myself down
through the open hatchway leading to the lazarette, believing that that
would be the part of the ship wherein a person might most successfully
hide and evade capture. I was no sooner down in this gloomy receptacle,
devoted to the stowage of the ship's cabin stores, than I saw that it
too had been rummaged, if not actually rifled; but I could detect no
sign indicative of the presence of a person, or persons, in hiding; and
although I shouted until I was hoarse, no sound save the furtive
scurrying of rats reached me by way of reply. But presently, as I stood
listening, and my ears became accustomed to the subdued creaking and
groaning of the vessel's framework and cargo, another sound came to me--
the sound of gurgling, bubbling water; and making my way toward it as
best I could down between the casks and cases that cumbered the place, I
suddenly dropped down into a void, and found water--salt water, surging
and washing to and fro with the movements of the ship, to the height of
my knees. I tried to find the source of the inflow, but I was now down
in the ship's run, standing upon her steeply sloping side, and I
speedily realised that the points of influx were already so far beneath
the surface as to be entirely beyond my reach; and the water was coming
in fast, too, for even as I stood there I could feel it creeping
insidiously up my legs. The scoundrels had evidently followed their
usual custom and had scuttled the ship, in order that no tangible
evidences of their crime might remain.
Until I made this discovery it had been my intention to put a prize-crew
on board her and send her into Port Royal; but with one or more--
probably half-a-dozen--bad leaks below the water-level, and utterly
beyond our reach, this plan was no longer feasible; and now the only
thing to be done was to leave the unfortunate craft to her fate, proceed
in chase of the authors of the mischief, and do our utmost to bring them
to book. I therefore scrambled up out of the lazarette into the main
saloon, made my way out on deck again, and, summoning my boat's crew,
descended the deserted ship's side, and pushed off on my way back to the
_Wasp_.
But it was with something akin to shock that I looked back at the _Santa
Brigitta_, as the boat sped across the short space of water that
separated her from the schooner. For although we had only been aboard
her a short half-hour, she had settled perceptibly during that time; so
deeply, indeed, that as I looked at her I felt convinced she must have
been scuttled forward as well as aft, and that the water must be pouring
into her from at least a dozen auger-holes. At that rate she would sink
long before we could get out of sight of her, although the breeze was
now perceptibly stronger than it had been when I boarded the ill-fated
ship.
By the time that I had regained the deck of the _Wasp_, and that craft
was once more under way, the pirate schooner was hull-down on the
north-western horizon, nearly ten miles away. But light breezes and
smooth water, such as we had at the moment, constituted absolutely ideal
weather for the _Wasp_; it was under precisely such conditions that her
marvellous sailing powers showed to the utmost advantage, and, smart as
the other schooner had revealed herself to be, I had very little doubt
as to our ability to overhaul her and bring her to account. We
therefore piled upon the little hooker every rag that we could find a
spar or stay for, brought her to the wind, flattened-in her sheets until
her mainboom was almost amidships, and generally made all our
preparations for a long chase to windward.
But although the weather was at the moment everything that could be
desired, from our point of view, I did not by any means like the look of
it; the hazy appearance of the atmosphere, far from clearing, was
steadily increasing in density, the sun had by this time vanished
altogether, and the appearance of gloom away down to the westward was
now deepening and, at the same time, working round into the northern
quarter of the heavens. Also, the mercury was dropping quite rapidly.
My chief anxiety now was to overhaul the pirate schooner and bring her
to action before nightfall; for, with bad weather threatening, unless we
could succeed in doing this, there was every likelihood of her giving us
the slip during the hours of darkness. A stern-chase is proverbially a
long chase, and a chase to windward is apt to be even longer, while a
start of some ten miles, under such circumstances, must necessarily
prove a heavy handicap to the pursuing vessel; nevertheless I was not
without hope that, difficult as our task threatened to be, we might yet
accomplish it. For it still wanted nearly an hour to noon, the _Wasp_
was slipping along through the water like a racer, and was looking up a
full point nearer the wind than our antagonist, and, early as it yet was
to form such a conclusion, I felt almost certain that we were
head-reaching as well as weathering upon the chase.
As soon as it became apparent that some hours would probably elapse
before we could go into action, I gave orders for the guns to be secured
and the galley fire to be lighted again, in order that the men might not
be deprived of their usual dinner; and this meal was just nicely over
when, to our utter amazement, the chase suddenly hoisted the black flag,
bore up, and with squared yards came running down with the obvious
intention of coming to close quarters with us; whereupon we once more
made ready for battle, at the same time shortening sail to our ordinary
working canvas. At first I was distinctly puzzled to account for or
understand this sudden change of tactics upon the part of the pirates;
but a remark of Henderson's seemed to offer a tolerably plausible
explanation of it.
"Depend upon it, sir," he suggested, "they only hauled off to give
themselves time to stow away the plunder that cumbered their decks when
they shoved off from the Spaniard. They wouldn't want to go into action
with a lot of bales and cases hamperin' their movements; but now that
they've got everything snugly stowed under hatches, they're comin' down
to try conclusions with us; and if they really mean business we've a
very tidy little job afore us."
"Ay," I assented; "that schooner will prove a very tough nut to crack,
Henderson; she carries more than twice our weight of metal, even if I am
mistaken in supposing that I saw a long gun on her forecastle; and she
appears to be very strongly manned. Our only chance will be to engage
her at close quarters, lay her aboard, and carry her by boarding."
"D'ye think they'll be such fools as to let us do that, sir?"
caustically demanded the gunner, chewing hard upon his quid, in his
evident perplexity.
"N-o," I returned dubiously; "I don't suppose they will--if they can
help it. But that is our only chance, all the same, and we must bend
all our energies to accomplish it. And there is no particular reason
why we should not, so far as I can see, unless of course we are
unfortunate enough to have a spar or two knocked away. Good shooting is
what is going to decide this fight, Henderson; and we must hope that
ours will be better than theirs."
"Ay," agreed the gunner, "there's no harm in hopin' that; but--" He
shook his head, and spat vigorously over the side by way of expressing
the doubts that were worrying him.
As it turned out, his doubts and apprehensions were by no means without
foundation, for when our antagonist arrived within range of her long
32--I was not mistaken as to that matter--she hauled her wind, and
opened fire upon us with it, making very excellent practice, too;
although it was not until she had fired six shots at us that any of them
actually came near enough to do us any damage, and then the shot only
passed through our foresail, making a neat hole in the canvas, but doing
no further mischief. Her previous attempts, however, had come close
enough to us to prove that she had at least one excellent gunner on
board her, for every one of the shot fell within two or three fathoms of
us at the utmost; and when a man shoots so well at long range he is
bound to score a few hits, sooner or later. And this was precisely what
Henderson and I most feared; for so long as the pirates chose to play
the game of long bowls they might blaze away at us at their leisure, and
in perfect safety, their 32-pound shot flying over and over us at a
distance far beyond the range of our 9-pounders.
What we now had to do was to shorten the distance between ourselves and
our antagonist as quickly as possible, and bring her within reach of our
guns before we sustained any very serious damage from her long gun, if
fortune would so far favour us; and I thought that possibly I might here
be able to make one of the _Wasp's_ peculiarities very useful. This
peculiarity consisted in the fact--which we had by this time had many
opportunities of observing--that, in smooth water, such as then
prevailed, the little vessel would, if properly handled, shoot quite an
extraordinary distance to windward while in stays; and I had it in my
mind to utilise this peculiarity now by making a series of very short
boards, getting good way upon her, and then easing her helm very gently
down, allowing her to shoot the maximum possible distance to windward
every time that we hove about. I mentioned the idea to Henderson, but
he had not very much faith in it; his idea being that of most old salts,
that the best way to work to windward was to break tacks as seldom as
possible; he agreed, however, that it might perhaps be worth while to
make the experiment and see what the result would be. We accordingly
put my plan into practice, with such good effect that half-an-hour later
we had actually succeeded in working up near enough to the pirate to
bring her within range of our own guns. But meanwhile she had been most
assiduously pegging away at us, in the first instance with her long gun
only, but latterly with her 12-pounders--of which she mounted seven in
each battery--as well, and we had by no means come off scathless, having
been hulled three times, and losing two men killed and five wounded
before a single shot of ours had reached her, though our spars had thus
far escaped, and our rigging had not suffered to any very serious
extent.
With our arrival within range of our own guns, however, matters began to
be a little more lively; we were fortunate enough to have some
half-a-dozen very excellent shots among us, and these men now began to
make play, each man being evidently anxious to win for himself the proud
distinction of being the champion shot of the ship, with the result that
daylight began to show here and there through the pirate schooner's
canvas, severed ropes streamed out from the spars, and the splinters
began to fly on board her. Then a particularly lucky shot struck her
main-masthead fair, just above the nip of her lower rigging, and the
next moment down came her main-topmast, with its huge gaff-topsail,
while the peak of her mainsail drooped until the gaff hung almost up and
down.
"Hurrah, lads!" I cried exultantly; "now we have her. See how she pays
off! She is bound to come to leeward now; she cannot help herself.
Down helm, Mr Willoughby, and let her go round. Stand by to give her
our starboard broadside as we cross her bows. Slap it right into the
eyes of her--Phew! that's a nasty one," as a shot from her 32-pounder
came along, smashing right through both our quarter-boats, cutting their
keels clean in half, tearing a great gap in the bottom planking of each,
filling the air in the immediate neighbourhood with splinters, and
whizzing so close past my head that the wind of it whipped my hat off
and overboard.
The two craft were now not more than a short half-mile distant, and fast
approaching each other, the pirate's loss of after-sail causing her to
fall broad off and come foaming down toward us, despite obvious efforts
to keep her to the wind, while we on our side were making the most
desperate efforts to get to windward and thus secure the advantage of
the weather-gage, which, in a sea-fight, often means so much. Conned by
Willoughby, who was acting master, the lively little _Wasp_ swept round
into the wind, fore-reaching magnificently in stays, and then paying
smartly off on the starboard tack; and as she did so our three starboard
pop-guns barked out, one after the other, and I saw the splinters fly
white as the shot struck, close together, about half-way between her
starboard hawse-pipe and her cathead, just at the precise moment when
she was dead end-on to us. The shot must have raked her from end to
end, and quite a small uproar of yells and shrieks that came floating
down from her to us on the wings of the freshening breeze told us that
they had wrought a very fair amount of execution on board her. But it
was evident that her captain knew his business, for the next moment
several hands sprang into her fore-rigging; her topsail, topgallantsail
and royal were clewed up and furled with exemplary celerity; her jib was
hauled down and stowed, and she was again brought to the wind, while
half-a-dozen hands swarmed aloft to her mainmast-head to clear away the
wreck of her topmast and to pass strops round the shattered stump, to
hook the peak-halliard blocks to, and enable them to sway away the peak
of the mainsail again. And all the while that this was doing they
maintained their fire upon us with the most ferocious energy, and alas!
with very deplorable results to the little _Wasp_ and her crew, for we
were by this time so close to each other that it was practically
impossible for either side to miss; and now it was that her superior
weight of metal began to tell.
Our casualties were by this time becoming serious, for we had already
lost nine men killed outright, while every moment more wounded were
being taken down into my cabin, where Saunders, the surgeon, was working
like a nigger, affording temporary relief--he could do no more just
then--to the injured. We were still devoting all our energies to the
task of getting to windward of our antagonist, and firing at her as fast
as our leaping guns could be loaded, in the endeavour to disable her,
when they succeeded in bringing her again to the wind, and as she
rounded-to they gave us their whole broadside of seven 12-pounders, with
a shot from their long 32-pounder by way of make-weight. The result was
absolutely disastrous, for as the iron shower hurtled about our ears
there was a crashing, tearing sound aloft, and away went both our masts
over the side, the foremast shot away close to the deck, while the
mainmast went about half-way up its length. Nor, bad as this was, was
it all, for poor Willoughby, who was standing by my side, had the top of
his skull literally shot away, and fell dead into my arms. The next
moment the carpenter came to me with the report that we had been hit
between wind and water by a 32-pound shot, and that the schooner was
making water fast.
The pirates cheered with ferocious glee as they saw the plight to which
they had reduced us, and their captain--a tall, handsome scoundrel, with
a very Spanish-looking cast of countenance--had the impudence to leap up
on the rail of his vessel and hail us, demanding to know whether we had
struck!
"No!" I shouted back fiercely; "and we never will to such a hang-dog,
murderous set of scoundrels as man that schooner. Do your worst, you
villains. You have the advantage of us this time, but when next we meet
it will be my turn!"
"You crow loudly, young cockerel," retorted the pirate captain
scornfully, "but if your men are wise they will leave their guns and go
below, for I swear to you that if they fire another shot I will sink
you!"
"Sink us, then, and be hanged to you!" I yelled back in reply. Then in
my exasperation I whipped a pistol out of my belt, and levelling it at
him, pulled the trigger. But he did not mean to be shot if he could
help it,--preferring, I suppose, to take the risk of being hanged later
on,--and the moment that he saw what I would be at he sprang off his
perch so hurriedly that he fell headlong to the deck, while our lads
sent up a howl of savage derision.
"Put a charge of grape in on top of your round shot, lads," I ordered,
"and blaze away as fast as you can load. The _Wasp_ has lost her wings,
but her sting remains, and we'll make those scoundrels feel it yet
before we have done with them!"
The men responded to this with a loud, fierce hurrah, and turned to
their guns again as cheerfully as though they were still certain of
victory, although there was probably not a man there who did not by that
time realise that the chances were all against the gallant little
schooner ever reaching port again.
The battle now raged with absolutely maniacal fury, the two schooners
being by this time within biscuit-toss of each other, the pirate
schooner lying on our weather-beam. The guns--so hot that they
threatened to leap over the low rail into the sea--were loaded and fired
as fast as the men could serve them, and, fighting at such close
quarters, the carnage on both sides was frightful, the bulwarks of both
vessels being practically shot away, and the guns and those who served
them left absolutely defenceless. Our deck was like a shambles--there
seemed to be more dead than living upon it--and the scuppers were all
spouting blood, while the pirates were in scarcely better case, although
it was now apparent that they had originally outnumbered us by something
like three to one. How long the matter would have continued in this
fashion it is impossible to say, but after we had thus been fighting
almost hand to hand for about a quarter of an hour, during which the
pirate schooner gradually drew ahead of us, a lucky shot from one of our
guns brought down her mainmast, when she fell broad off, passed across
our bows, raking us severely as she went, and then drove rapidly away to
leeward, her people having apparently at length come to the conclusion
that they had had all that they wanted in the way of fighting.
The moment it became certain that the fight was over I sank down upon
the breech of the nearest gun, mopped the blood and perspiration from my
face, and tried to understand the scene of ruin and carnage that
surrounded me; for, with the cessation of the turmoil and excitement of
battle, everything seemed suddenly to assume the inconsequence and
unreality of a dream. I could not quite realise that the shot-torn,
blood-bespattered wreck over which my gaze wandered wonderingly was the
erstwhile smart and dainty little schooner of which I had been so proud,
or that those maimed and disfigured forms lying broadcast about the deck
were really dead men; also, my head ached most consumedly, there was a
loud buzzing in my ears, the silence--or rather the comparative silence
that succeeded to the continuous, sharp explosions of the guns, the
excited shouts of the men, and the cries of the wounded--seemed weird,
uncanny, unnatural; for now there were no sounds save the wash of the
water alongside, an intermittent groaning--cut into now and then by the
sharp cry of a man under the hands of the surgeon--coming up through the
smashed skylight, and the low murmur of the men speaking to each other
from time to time where they had flung themselves down exhausted between
the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was
inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight--the battle having
lasted for over an hour--and I felt that I must bestir myself or I
should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish.
I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a
glass of water--the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been
smashed to staves early in the fight--and then gave orders for the men
to secure the guns. I also sent young Hinton down below to ascertain
and bring me the particulars of our casualties.
Thus far we had all been much too strenuously engaged, and our attention
too fully occupied, to take note of the weather; but now, as I glanced
round at the lowering heavens and observed their threatening aspect, I
bethought me that, fatigued though we all were, there still remained an
abundance of work to be done in preparation for the storm that was
evidently brewing. For the sky was now completely overcast with a pall
of dense, livid, purplish, slate-coloured cloud that clearly portended a
gale; the wind was coming in hot, fierce, intermittent puffs that
scourged the sea into miniature foam-flecked waves for a few seconds at
a time and then dropped almost to a calm again, and upon looking at the
barometer I saw that the mercury had fallen almost half-an-inch since I
had last looked at it shortly before the commencement of the fight. The
Spaniard had vanished, and the pirate schooner was still running away to
leeward.
Presently young Hinton, the midshipman whom I had sent below to
ascertain the extent of our casualties, came up to me with a list in his
hand which he had himself prepared, Saunders, the surgeon, being at that
moment far too busy to spare time for the making up of returns; and from
this list I learned the appalling news that, of our entire complement of
fifty-eight, all told, we had lost no less than seventeen killed, and
thirty-two more or less severely wounded, leaving only a poor paltry
nine of us untouched, of whom I was one. Fortunately, of the thirty-two
wounded only about half of them were hurt severely enough to be rendered
totally unfit for duty; but that was bad enough in all conscience, with
the ship dismantled and leaking, and something very like a gale
threatening.
I had just finished the perusal of young Hinton's list when Henderson
and the carpenter came up on deck, the former bringing with him the keys
of the magazine, which he had secured, in accordance with an order which
I had sent down below to him, while Mills was fresh from his examination
of the ship's interior. His report was anything but reassuring, for the
news he brought was to the effect that we had been hulled no less than
seventeen times, four of the shot that had hulled us being 32-pounders,
one of which and two of the pirate's 12-pounders had struck us between
wind and water. He added that he had plugged the holes as well as he
could, but that there was nearly three feet of water in the hold, that
the little ship was very severely strained, and that she was making
water at the rate of nearly eight inches an hour!