As the pirate sloop raced southward under full sail, the form of the
other ship became steadily plainer. She was a brig, high-pooped, and
tall-masted, and apparently deeply laden. Major Bonnet, who had come up
at the first warning, seemed his old cool self as he conned the enemy
through a spyglass. Jeremy had been detailed as a sort of errand boy,
and as he stood at the Captain's side he heard him speaking to Herriot.
"She's British, right enough," he was saying. "I can make out her flag;
but how many guns, 'tis harder to tell. She sees us now, I think, for
they seem to be shaking out a topsail.... Ah, now I can see the sun
shine on her broadside--two ... three ... five in the lower port tier,
and three more above--sixteen in all. 'Twill be a fight, it seems!"
Aboard the _Royal James_ the men were slaving like ants, preparing for
the battle. Every man knew his duties. The gunners and swabbers were
putting their cannon in fettle below decks. Others were rolling out
round-shot from the hold and storing powder in iron-cased lockers behind
the guns. Great tubs of sea water were placed conveniently in the
'tween-decks and blankets were put to soak for use in case of fire.
Buckets of vinegar water for swabbing the guns were laid handy. In the
galley the cook made hot grog. Cutlasses were looked after, pistols
cleaned and loaded and muskets set out for close firing. Jeremy was sent
hither and thither on every imaginable mission, a tremendous excitement
running in his veins.
The sloop gained rapidly on her prey, hauling over to windward as she
sailed, and when the two ships were almost within cannon range, Stede
Bonnet with his own hand bent the "Jolly Roger" to the lanyard and sent
the great black flag with its skull and crossbones to fly from the
masthead. The grog was served out. No man would have believed that the
roaring, rollicking gang of cutthroats who tossed off their liquor in
cheers and ribald laughter was identical with the grumbling, sour-faced
crew of twenty hours before. As they finished, something came skipping
over the water astern and the first echoing report followed close. The
cannonade was on.
A loud yell of defiance swept the length of the _Royal James_ as the men
went to their posts. The gun decks ran along both sides of the sloop a
few feet above the water line. They were like alleyways beneath the main
deck, barely wide enough to admit the passage of a man or a keg of
powder behind the gun-carriages. These latter were not fixed to the
planking as afterward became the fashion, but ran on trucks and were
kept in their places by rope tackles. In action, the recoil had to be
taken up by men who held the ends of these ropes, rove through pulleys
in the vessel's side. Despite their efforts the gun would sometimes leap
back against the bulkhead hard enough to shatter it. As the charge for
each reloading had to be carried sometimes half the length of the ship
by hand, it is easy to see that the men who served the guns needed some
strength and agility in getting past the jumping carriages.
Jeremy was sent below to help the gunners, as the shot from the
merchantman continued to scream by. Job Howland was a gunner on the port
side and the boy naturally lent his services to the one man aboard that
he could call his friend. There was much bustle in the alley behind the
closed ports but surprisingly little confusion was apparent. The
discipline seemed better than at any time since the boy had been brought
aboard the black sloop.
Job was ramming the wad home on the charge of powder in his bow gun. The
other four guns in the port deck were being loaded at the same time,
three men tending each one.
"Here, lad," sang out Job, as he put the single iron shot in at the
muzzle, "take one o' the wet blankets out o' yon tub an' stand by to
fight sparks." Jeremy did as he was bid, then got out of the way as the
ports were flung open and the guns run forward, with their evil bronze
noses thrust out into the sunlight.
The sloop, running swiftly with the wind abeam, had now drawn abreast of
her unwieldy adversary. The merchant captain, apparently, finding
himself out-speeded and being unable to spare his gun crews to trim
sails, had put the head of his ship into the wind, where she stood, with
canvas flapping, her bows offering a steady mark to the pirate.
"Ready a port broadside!" came Bonnet's ringing order, and then--"Fire!"
Job Howland's blazing match went to the touch-hole at the word and his
six-pounder, roaring merrily, jumped back two good feet against the
straining ropes of the tackle. Instantly the next gun spoke and the next
and so on, all five in a space of a bare ten seconds. Had they been
fired simultaneously they might have shaken the ship to pieces. Jeremy
was half-deafened, and his whole body was jarred. Thick black smoke hung
in the alleyway, for the ports had been closed in order to reload in
greater safety. The boy felt the deck heel to starboard under him and
thought at first that a shot had caught them under the waterline, but
when he was sent above to find out whether the broadside had taken
effect, he found that the sloop had come about and was already driving
north still to windward of the enemy. Bonnet was giving his gunners more
time to load by running back and forth and using his batteries
alternately. Herriot had the tiller and in response to Jeremy's question
he pointed to the fluttering rags of the brig's foresail and the smoke
that issued from a splintered hole under her bow chains.
Below in the gun deck the buccaneers, sweating by their pieces, heard
the news with cheers. The sloop shook to the jarring report of the
starboard battery a moment later, and hardly had it ceased when she came
about on the other tack. "Hurrah," cried Job's mates, "we'll show him
this time! Wind an' water--wind an' water!"
The open traps showed the green seas swirling past close below, and off
across the swells the tall side of the merchantman swaying in the trough
of the waves. "Ready!" came the order and every gunner jumped to the
breach, match in hand. Before the command came to fire there was a crash
of splintering wood and a long, intermittent roar came over the water.
The brig had taken advantage of her falling off the wind to deliver a
broadside in her own turn. Stede Bonnet's voice, cool as ever, gave the
order and four guns answered the brig's discharge. The crew of the
middle cannon lay on the deck in a pitiable state, two killed outright
and the gunner bleeding from a great splinter wound in the head. A shot
had entered to one side of the port, tearing the planking to bits and
after striking down the two gun-servers, had passed into the fo'c's'le.
Jeremy jumped forward with his blanket in time to stamp out a blaze
where the firing-match had been dropped, and with the help of one of the
pirates dragged the wounded man to his berth. Almost every shot of the
last volley had done damage aboard the brig. Her freeboard, twice as
high as that of the sloop, had offered a target which for expert gunners
was hard to miss. Jagged openings showed all along her side, and as she
rose on a swell, Job shouted, "See there! She's leakin' now. 'Twas my
last shot did that--right on her waterline!"
"All hands on deck to board her!" came a shout, almost at the same
instant. Jeremy hurrying up with the rest found the sloop bearing down
straight before the wind, and only a dozen boat's lengths from the
enemy.
A wild whoop went up among the pirates. Every man had seized on a musket
and was crouching behind the rail. Bonnet alone stood on the open deck,
his buff coat blowing open and his hand resting lightly on his sword. An
occasional cannon shot screamed overhead or splashed away astern.
Apparently the brig's batteries were too greatly damaged and her crew
too badly shot up to offer an effective bombardment. She was drifting
helplessly under tattered ribbons of canvas and the _Royal James_, whose
sails had suffered far less, bore down upon her opponent with the swoop
of a hawk.
As she drew close aboard a scattered fusillade of small arms broke out
from the brig's poop, wounding one man, a Portuguese, but for the most
part striking harmlessly against the bulwark. The buccaneers held their
fire till they were scarce a boat's length distant. Then at the order
they swept the ship with a withering musket volley. The brig was down by
the head and lay almost bow on so that her deck was exposed to Bonnet's
marksmen. Herriot brought his sloop about like a flash and almost before
Jeremy realized what was toward, the ships had bumped together side by
side, and the howling mob of pirates was swarming over the enemy's rail.
Job Howland and another man took great boat-hooks, with which they
grappled the brig's ports and kept the two vessels from drifting apart.
Jeremy was alone upon the sloop's deck. He put the thickness of the mast
between him and the hail of bullets and peered fearfully out at the
terrible scene above.
[Illustration: Dave Herriot]
The crew of the brig had been too much disorganized to repel the
boarders as well as they might, and the entire horde of wild barbarians
had scrambled to her deck, where a perfect inferno now held sway. The
air seemed full of flying cutlasses that produced an incessant hiss and
clangor. Pistols banged deafeningly at close quarters and there was the
constant undertone of groans, cries and bellowed oaths. Above the din
came the terrible, clear voice of Stede Bonnet, urging on his seadogs.
He had become a different man from the moment his foot touched the
merchantman's deck. From the cool commander he had changed to a devil
incarnate, with face distorted, eyes aflame, and a sword that hacked and
stabbed with the swift ferocity of lightning. Jeremy saw him, fighting
single-handed with three men. His long sword played in and out, to the
right and to the left with a turn and a flash, then, whirling swiftly,
pinned a man who had run up behind. Bonnet's feet moved quickly,
shifting ground as stealthily as a cat's and in a second he had leaped
to a safer position with his back to the after-house. Two of his
opponents were down, and the third fighting wearily and without
confidence, when a huge, flaxen-haired man burst from the hatch to the
deck and swung his broad cutlass to such effect that the battling groups
in his path gave way to either side. The burly form of Dave Herriot
opposed the new enemy and as the two giants squared off, sword ringing
on sword, more than one wounded sailor raised himself to a better
position, grinning with the Anglo-Saxon's unquenchable love of a fair
fight. Herriot was no mean swordsman of the rough and ready seaman's
type and had a great physique as well, but his previous labors--he had
been the first man on board and had already accounted for a fair share
of the defenders--had rendered him slow and arm-weary. The ready
parrying, blade to blade, ceased suddenly as his foot slipped backward
in a pool of blood. The blond seaman seized his advantage and swung a
slicing blow that glanced off Herriot's forehead, and felled the huge
buccaneer to the deck where he lay stunned, the quick red staining his
head-cloth. As the blond-haired man stepped forward to finish the
business, a long, keen, straight blade interposed, caught his cutlass in
an upward parry and at the same time pinked him painfully in the arm.
Jumping back the seaman found himself faced by the pitiless eyes of
Stede Bonnet, who had killed his last opponent and run in to save his
mate's life. That quick, darting sword baffled the sailor. Swing and
hack as he might, his blows were caught in midair and fell away
harmless, while always the relentless point drove him back and back.
Forced to the rail, he stood his ground desperately, pale and glistening
with the sweat of a man in the fear of death. Then his sword flew up,
the pirate captain stabbed him through the throat and with a dying gasp
the limp body fell backward into the sea.
Meanwhile the pirates had steadily gained ground in the hand to hand
struggle and now a bare half-dozen brave fellows held on, fighting
singly or in pairs, back to back. The brig's captain, wounded in several
places and seeing his crew in a fair way to be annihilated, flung up a
tired arm and cried for quarter. Almost at once the fighting ceased and
half the combatants, utterly exhausted, sank down among their dead and
wounded fellows. The deck was a long shambles, red from the bits to the
poop.
While the hands of the prisoners were being bound, Bonnet and all of his
men not otherwise employed hurried below to search for loot. The man who
had held the boat-hook astern left this task and greedily clambered up
the brig's side lest he should miss his chance at the booty. Job alone
stuck to his post, and motioned Jeremy to stay where he was. Cheers and
yells of joy rang from the after-hold of the merchantman where the
pirates had evidently discovered the ship's store of wine.
After a few moments Pharaoh Daggs thrust his scarred face out of the
companion, and with a fierce roar of laughter waved a black bottle above
his head. The others followed, drinking and babbling curses, and last of
all Stede Bonnet, pale, dishevelled, mad with blood and liquor, stood
bareheaded by the hatch. He raised his hand in a gesture of silence and
all the hubbub ceased. "We have beaten them!" he cried between twitching
lips. "I Captain Thomas, the chiefest of all the pirates, and my
bully-boys of the _Royal James_! We'll show 'em all! We'll show 'em all!
Blackbeard and all the rest! He, he, he!" and his voice trailed off in
crazy laughter. The men of the crew stood about him on the brig's deck
dumbfounded by his words. Jeremy could hardly breathe in his surprise.
Suddenly he gave a start and would have cried out but that Job Howland's
hand closed his mouth. A swiftly widening lane of water separated the
sloop from her late enemy.