"By George! is that so?" ejaculated the skipper, starting off with a mad
clutch at his cap, which he had thrown off on to a locker close by in
the heat of his excitement during the colonel's yarn. "I'll be on the
bridge in a jiffey! Thank God for that news!"
"Hooray!" shouted Garry O'Neil, as we all immediately jumped from our
seats on hearing this joyful intelligence, long though it had been in
coming, even the poor colonel, sliding his bandaged leg off its
supporting chair and standing on his feet, prepared to follow the
skipper on deck without a moment's delay. "Be the powers! I knew we'd
overhaul them divvles before sundown! Faith, an' I tould ye so,
colonel; I tould ye so, you know I did!"
But just then an unexpected interruption arrested us as we all moved
towards the companion-way to regain the deck above.
"Look here, colonel," cried a voice from the skipper's state room aft,
where the commander of the _Saint Pierre_ was supposed to be reposing in
an almost insensible condition. "Get out of here! you are not worth
being angry with."
"Begorrah, it's your poor fri'nd in there!" said Garry O'Neil to the
colonel. "What's the poor crayture parleyvooing about, instid of
slaypin' loike a Christian whin he's got the chance? Sure, I'll have to
stop his jaundering there, or he'll niver git betther!"
"Stay a moment; he's beginning again, poor fellow," remarked the
colonel, holding up his hand.
"Listen!"
"You villains! take that!" called out the Frenchman in a louder key and
in a tone of anger, as if battling with the blacks on board the _Saint
Pierre_ over again; and then, after a pause we heard a piteous cry. "My
God! they are going to shoot me! Look! Look! To the rescue, colonel,
quickly, quickly, to the rescue."
"Bedad, he's in a bad way entoirely!" said Garry, as he and the colonel,
with myself at their heels, entered the after cabin, where we saw
Captain Alphonse sitting up in the skipper's cot, and gesticulating
frantically. "What can he be after sayin' now, sor?"
"He is going over the boat scene on the poop of our unfortunate vessel,
when the Haytian blacks, as I told you, made at him and the other sailor
before I rushed up from below, too late to save him, poor fellow!"
explained the colonel. "He's calling out for help, as I suppose he did
then, though I didn't hear him!"
"It sounds moighty queer, anyhow," continued the Irishman. "Whisht!
There, he's at it again! What does that extraordinary lingo mean now?
I can't make h'id nor tale of it, sor!"
"Hoist the flag immediately! Close furl the main topsail!" exclaimed
the poor wounded man in short jerky sentences, as he sat up there in the
swinging cot, with his hands tearing at the bandage that was bound round
his head, looking as if he had just risen from the dead, and reminding
me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes
were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for
a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he
fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail,
"Alas, for the ship! Too late, too late, too late."
"Heavens!" said the colonel, turning to Garry. "Can't you do anything
for him?"
"I'll put somethin' coolin' on the dressin', an' that'll make the poor
chap's h'id aisier," replied the other, suiting the action to the word.
"Ice, sure, 'ud be betther; but, faith, there isn't a morsel aboard!"
Whatever he did apply, however, had a quieting influence, and presently,
after tossing from side to side convulsively, Captain Alphonse closed
his great staring eyes and began to snore stertorously.
"Heaven be praised!" cried Colonel Vereker. "He's sleeping again, now!"
"Faith, an' a good job, too, for him, poor crayture," said Garry. "He's
in a bad way, I till you, sor! an' he'd betther die aisy whin he's about
it, sure, than kickin' up a row that won't help him."
"What!" returned the colonel. "Do you think he's going to die?"
"Begorrah, all the docthers in the worrld wouldn't save him!"
"My poor friend, my poor friend!" cried the colonel. "I will stay with
him then, to the end, so as to soothe his last moments!"
There was evidently a struggle going on in Colonel Vereker's mind
between his desire to do his duty, as he thought, to the dying man, and
his natural anxiety to be on deck participating in all the excitement of
the chase after the runaway ship and the coming fight with the Haytians,
when the black rascals would be called to a final account for all the
misery and bloodshed they had caused.
Garry O'Neil saw this, and pooh-poohed the idea of the colonel remaining
below.
"Faith, there ain't the laste bit of good, sor, in yer stoppin' down
here at all, at all," said he in his brisk, energetic way. "The poor
chap won't be afther stirrin' ag'in for the next two hours or more; an'
if he does, bedad, he won't ricognise ye, or any one ilse for that
matther!"
"But, sir doctor--"
"Houly Moses! I till you, colonel, there ain't no use in your stoppin'
another minnit!" impatiently cried the good-natured Irishman,
interrupting his half-hearted expostulator. "Jist you clear out of this
at once, an' go on deck an' say the foightin' with those murtherin'
bleyguards. I'll moind my paychant now till that old thaife Weston's
finished all the schraps lift in the plates an' bottles from lunch; an'
thin, faith, he shall take charge of him an' I'll come up too, to say
the foon. Now, be off wid ye, colonel, dear; you'll say the poor chap
ag'in afther the rumpus is over. Dick Haldane, me darlint, hind the
colonel the loan of yer arrum, alannah. There, now off ye both go.
Away wid ye!"
So saying, he fairly pushed us out of the cabin; and, the colonel
limping by my side and using my shoulder as a crutch, as he had
previously done, we both went up the companion-ladder, and gained the
poop.
The scene here presented a striking contrast to that we had just left,
the fresh air, bright sun, and sparkling sea all speaking of life and
movement, in exchange for the stuffy atmosphere of the darkened saloon
and its association of illness and approaching death.
A stiff breeze was blowing now from the southward, and running, as we
were, to the northward, right before it, the skipper had ordered all our
square sails forward to be set so as to take every advantage of the
wind, in addition to our steam-power, the old barquey prancing away full
speed ahead, with her topsails and fore canvas bellied out to their
utmost extent, their leech lifting occasionally with a flicker as she
outran the breeze and the clew-gallant blocks rattling as the sheets
slackened and grew taut again, while the wind hummed through the canvas
aloft like a thousand bees buzzing about the rigging.
The black smoke, too, was rushing up the funnel and whirling in the air
overhead, uncertain which direction to take, from the speed of the
vessel inclining it to trail away aft, while the stiff southerly breeze
blew it forwards; so we carried it all along with us, hung up above our
dog vane like an awning as we careered onwards, raising a deep furrow of
swelling water on either side as we cut through the dancing sunlit
waves, and leaving a long white wake astern that shone through the blue,
far away behind in the distance, to where sea and sky melted into one,
far away on the horizon line.
Old Masters, the boatswain, was on the poop when the colonel and I came
up from below, in the very act of hauling in the patent log to ascertain
our speed.
"Well," said I, as he looked at the index of the ungainly thing, which
is something of a cross between a shark hook and a miniature screw
propeller. "What's she doing, bo'sun?"
"Doing? Wot she's a-doing on, sir?" he replied, repeating my own words
and mouthing them over with much gusto. "Why, sir, she's going sixteen
knots still, and the bloomin' old grampus has been keeping it up since
four bells. She carries the wind with her, too; for jist as we bore up
north awhile ago, astern the chase, I'm blessed if the breeze didn't
shift round likewise to the south'ard, keepin' astern of us as before!"
"Where is the chase?" I asked, not being able to see forwards on
account of the swelling foresail and other intervening objects. "I
suppose she's right ahead, eh?"
"No, sir. Jist come here alongside o' me at the taffrail," said he.
"Now foller my finger, sir. Look, there she is, two points off our
starboard bow. She was hull down jist now, but we're rising her fast,
sir. See, there she be right under the foreyard there!"
I looked in the direction he indicated, and could very faintly in the
distance see something white like a sail, almost out of sight on the
ocean ahead.
"But, Masters," said I, having no glass with me to bring her nearer, and
seeing she was too far off for me to distinguish her with the naked eye,
"are you certain she's the same craft?"
"As sartin, Master Haldane," he answered solemnly, "aye, as sartin as
that when we goes aboard her, as go aboard her we must, we shall both be
a-goin' to our death! That's the `ghost-ship,' Master Haldane, as you
and I've seed three times afore. May I die this minute if she ain't!"
"Die! don't talk such nonsense, Masters."
"It ain't no nonsense, Master Haldane," he retorted, and looking the
picture of misery and unhappiness. "That there ship means no good to
you nor me, nor to none of them as seed her afore, I knows. It's her,
sure enuff. No mortal ship could sail on like that continually since
Friday, right afore the wind, and still allers be a-crossin' our hawser,
though her canvas be tore to ribbings and never a man aboard, as we've
seed. It ain't nat'ral, nohow. Aye, she be the `ghost-ship' and no
mistake,--and God help us all!"
I noticed at the moment a telescope lying on the top of the saloon
skylight, which Mr Fosset must have left behind him in his haste, when
he came from the bridge to hail the skipper and then hurried back to his
post; so, quickly catching up the glass, I scanned the distant sail,
which grew more perceptible every minute.
Yes, there was no doubt about it.
She was a full-rigged ship running before the wind, but going a bit
every now and then off her course as if under no proper guidance or
management, while all her sails were torn and hanging anyhow, and her
spars and rigging apparently at sixes and sevens, as though she had been
terribly mauled by the weather.
"For Heaven's sake, tell me!" cried the colonel, who had approached me
unobserved while I was looking through the telescope. "Tell me, is she
there? Can you see her?"
"Yes, sir," said I. "I can see her, and it's the same ship I saw the
other night. It is the _Saint Pierre_!"
"Ha!" he exclaimed, his black eyes flashing into a passion that made him
forget his lameness, as he strode to the side of the vessel, where,
resting one hand on the rail, he shook the other menacingly at the ill-
fated craft, now with her hull well above the horizon. "Ah, you black
devils, we'll settle you at last!"
Meanwhile, the skipper, who had gone up to join Mr Fosset on the bridge
after leaving us below so suddenly, was making his way aft again; and on
the colonel turning round from the rail he found him at his back,
looking over his shoulder at the ship we were approaching.
The skipper was all agog with excitement.
"By George!" he exclaimed. "We're closing on her fast now, colonel!"
"How soon, Senor Applegarth, do you think we'll be before we're
alongside her?"
"In about half an hour at the outside, sir, unless something gives way.
We would have been up to her before if she had been lying-to; but she's
going ahead too, like ourselves, and not making bad way either,
considering the state she's in aloft, and her yawing this way and that.
It is wonderful how she keeps on!"
"Oh dear! oh dear! she's possessed, as your companion here said just now
to the young Senor Haldane."
"Oh, you mustn't mind what the bo'sun says," observed the skipper.
"He's chock full of the old superstitions of the sea, and makes
mountains out of molehills."
"The deuce! he's not far wrong about the _Saint Pierre_, though, for if
ever a ship had the devil aboard, I'm sure she has, in the shape of that
villainous black `marquis'!"
"Then the sooner the better for us to see about `Scotching' your de'il,"
cried the skipper with a laugh that meant business, I knew. "I'm now
going to call the hands aft and prepare for the fight, and they shall
have it hot, I can tell you," said he.
"Have you got arms enough for them, sir? Those rascals will make a
stubborn resistance, and there's a big lot of them still left in the
ship, remember!"
The skipper laughed outright at this.
"Lord bless you, colonel!" said he, "the steamers of our line are fitted
out in their way very like men-of-war; and I have enough rifles and
cutlasses in the arm chest below to rig out more than twice the number
of the crew we carry, besides revolvers for all the officers. This,
however, will be short and sharp work, as we're going to run your black
devils by the beard; so I shall only serve out cutlasses."
"But you'll spare me a revolver, Senor Applegarth? I left mine, as you
are aware, behind me," said he with a smile, "and I should like to have
another shot or two at my friend, the `marquis'!"
"Aye, aye, colonel, you shall have one, and a good one too, and so shall
all those who know how to use a pistol properly; but, for close hand-to-
hand fighting, I prefer cold steel myself."
Colonel Vereker joined in the skipper's grim chuckle, which suited his
mood well.
"Yes, sir, that's true," he rejoined; "but a revolver isn't to be
sneezed at, all the same!"
"No colonel, your leg'll bear witness to that," said the skipper as he
turned to me. "Run down quickly, Haldane, to the arm chest in my state
room--here are the keys--and pick out a dozen or so cutlasses and
boarding-pikes, with a revolver apiece for all on the quarter-deck, and
half a dozen rounds of ammunition. You can get Weston to help you to
bring the lot up here. Look smart; I want to serve them out at once, as
we're now coming up with the chase, and there's no time to lose."
Down I scuttled into the saloon with the skipper's bunch of keys; and,
calling the steward to help me, went into the after cabin, where Garry
O'Neil still remained, wetting the bandage round the head of the French
captain, and doing it too with greater delicacy of touch than the most
experienced and flippant of hospital nurses.
Garry was delighted when I told him what I came about.
"Houly Moses!" he ejaculated; "why that's the virry job for me, sure.
Here, Weston, you ugly thaife of a son of a gun, come here! There's
going to be some rare foightin' on deck prisintly; an' as I know ye
don't loike to be afther spoilin' that beautiful mug o' yours, you jist
sit down there, alannah, an' moind this poor chap here till I come below
ag'in, whilst I help Musther Haldane, too, with thim murtherin' arms
that give one a could chill, faith, to look at, bad cess to 'em."
He gave me a sly wink as he said this, which was unperceived by Weston,
who accepted the proposed change of duty with an alacrity that showed he
had no stomach for warfare procedure, and Garry and I very speedily took
up a bundle of weapons each on to the poop, laying them down close
beside the skipper, who stood against the rail.
"Ah, doctor," said the colonel, who was sitting down near by on the
skylight hatchway, resting himself before the battle should begin, on
seeing Garry come up the companion, "how's my poor friend now?"
"Faith, he's still unconshus," replied he, handing him a big revolver
with a cartridge belt attached; "ah, sure, I 'spect he'll remain so,
too, colonel, till you've had toime to polish off the rest of thim
schoindrels we're afther. Indade, it's going off loike that the poor
crayture will be, I'm afeard, whin it comes to the ind. I don't think
he'll ayther spake or move ag'in in this loife."
But Garry was mistaken in this diagnosis of his, as events turned out;
but, ere he could say another word, just then as the colonel was going
to make a reply to him, the skipper hammered on the deck with a marling-
spike to attract attention and give a hail at the very top of his voice
that made us all jump, it was so loud and unexpected.
"Ahoy there, forrad!" he shouted in stentorian tones that rang fore and
aft like a trumpet. "Bo'sun, send the hands aft."
"Say, cap'en," sang out Mr Fosset from the bridge, "shall I call up the
fellows down below in the stoke-hold, sir?"
"Aye. Ring the engine-room gong. I want every man-jack on deck that
Mr Stokes can spare; tell him so."
While old Masters was sounding his boatswain's pipe and while busy feet
were tramping aft, the men were beginning to cluster in the waist
immediately below the back of the poop. And here Captain Applegarth
stood stern and erect like an old lion, his cap off and his wavy grey
hair fluffed out over his head by the wind. While this was happening we
could hear the distant sound of the engine-room bell, and then there
came a hail from Mr Fosset.
"Mr Stokes is sending up every one from below, sir," yelled out the
first mate. "He says he can manage by himself now that we're nearly up
to the chase, with the help of a couple of the other firemen; and the
engineers and stokers, the whole lot of them in a batch, have
volunteered to come on deck and join the boarding party."
"That's your sort, my hearty," cried the skipper enthusiastically,
looking down at the sea of excited faces below gazing up expectantly at
his, awaiting the stirring words they knew to be coming, all having got
wind of the approaching fray. "Now, men, I have summoned the lot of you
aft because--well, because I've got something to say to you."
"Bully for you, old man," exclaimed one of the men, amidst a grand roar,
while I could distinguish, distinctly above the other voices of the
crew, Accra Prout, the mulatto cook's laugh as he called out
approvingly, "Golly, dat so, sonny!"
"Heavens!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker, seemingly, like myself, to
recognise the voice at once, "who's that?" said he sharply.
Accra Prout, who stood a head taller than any other of the men clustered
round him, caught sight of the colonel as the latter cast his eyes
downwards, rising from his seat and coming to the side of the skipper;
and the mulatto's eyes grew as large as saucers, while his eyeballs
rolled in delight and his wide mouth extended itself from ear to ear.
"Bress de Lor'!" he cried out, with all a darkey's emphatic enthusiasm,
breaking into a huge guffaw that was almost hysterical--"bress de Lor'!
it's de massa; it's Mass' Vereker from de plantation, for surh!"
"Yes, it's me, myself, sure enough, Prout; and I'm right glad to see
you," said the colonel, equally delighted. "There, Senor Applegarth,
didn't I tell you any of my old Louisianian hands would like to see me
again, in spite of what I said about those infernal niggers who seized
our ship?"
"Aye, you did, colonel, you did," replied the skipper, waving his hand
in the air; "but never mind that now--I'm going to speak to the crew."
"Now, me bhoys, altogether," cried Garry O'Neil, looking over the top of
the booby-hatch over the companion-way, "three cheers for the cap'en,
horray!"
"Horray!" roared the lot below with a kindred enthusiasm, "Horray!
Horray!"
"We're almost within hail now of the chase, sir," sang out Mr Fosset
from the bridge when the echo of the last deafening cheer had died away;
"I'm going to slow down, so that we can sheer up alongside."
"That's just what I was waiting for," said the skipper in answer to
this. "Now, men, you see that ship ahead of us?"
"Aye," called out the foremost hand, who had before spoken--the usual
leader, and the wit of the fo'c's'le--"the ghost-ship, cap'en."
"Well, ghost-ship, devil-ship, or whatever she may be, my lads, we're
going to board her and rescue a young lady, a child in age, the daughter
of my friend, Colonel Vereker here, and a lot of white men like
yourselves, who are now at the mercy of a gang of black demons who have
murdered the rest of the passengers and crew and taken possession of the
vessel. Are you going to stand by me, lads?"
His answer was another deafening cheer, heartier and louder even than
the first.
"Ah, I thought I could reckon on your help," cried the skipper in a tone
of proud satisfaction, glancing round at the colonel. "I have got your
tools handy for you, too, my lads; and if you will come up to the poop
in single file by the port-ladder, going down again by the starboard
gangway, each shall be supplied in turn. Mr O'Neil, please serve out
the cutlasses and boarding-pikes. Now, my men, way aloft there! Single
file, and no crushing, mind, and we'll get the job done all the
quicker!"
Ere he had finished speaking the arming of the men had already begun,
and within a very few minutes the cutlasses and long boarding-pikes had
all been distributed, every man having some weapon.
"Now, bo'sun, pipe the men to their stations," sang out the skipper, who
appeared to have already matured his plan of action. "Starboard watch
forrad, port watch aft, and all the stokers and firemen amidships, under
the bridge. Have a couple of hands, too, in the forechains, with a
hawser and grapnel, ready to make fast to the ship when we come
alongside her."
"Aye, aye, sir," hailed back Masters. "Starboard watch ahoy! Away
forrads with you along o' me!"
Our engines had already slackened speed; and, the helm being put down,
we came up to the wind, to leeward of the ship and not a half cable's
length away from her, broadside-on.
"Stand by there, forrad," shouted the skipper. "Ship ahoy there!
Surrender, or we'll run you aboard."
A wild savage yell came back in reply from a number of half-naked
negroes who were mustered on the after part of the vessel, as well as on
the forecastle, not a single white man being visible, while her
Tricolour flag--so conspicuous before, and which I fancied having seen
but half an hour or so previously when looking at her through the
telescope--was now no longer to be seen.
Could our worst fears have been realised?
Another savage yell almost confirmed the thought. "Heavens!" exclaimed
Colonel Vereker, rendered almost frantic with grief and excitement, and
noticing the appalling evidences of the Haytians' triumph, while we
stared aghast at each other. "My poor darling child, and those brave
fellows I left behind, where are they all; where are they? For God's
sake find them! Alas! alas! those black devils have murdered them all."