Mr. Toley makes a suggestion.
Making good sailing, the Good Intent reached Saldanhas Bay, where she put
in for a few necessary repairs, then safely rounded the Cape, and after a
short stay at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, taking in fresh
provisions there, set sail for the Malabar coast. The wind blew steadily
from the southwest, and she ran merrily before it.
During this part of the voyage Desmond found his position somewhat
improved. His pluck had won the rough admiration of the men; Captain
Barker was not so constantly chevying him; and Mr. Toley showed a more
active interest in him, teaching him the use of the sextant and quadrant,
how to take the altitude of the sun, and many other matters important in
navigation.
It was the third week of April, and the monsoon having begun, Captain
Barker expected before long to sight the Indian coast. One morning, about
two bells, the lookout reported a small vessel on the larboard bow,
laboring heavily. The captain took a long look at it through his
perspective glass, and made out that it was a two-masted grab; the
mainmast was gone.
"Odds bobs," he said to Mr. Toley, "'tis strange to meet a grab so far
out at sea. We'll run down to it."
"What is a grab?" asked Desmond of Bulger, when the news had circulated
through the ship's company.
"Why, that's a grab, sure enough. I en't a good hand at pictur' paintin';
we're runnin' square for the critter, and then you'll see for yourself.
This I'll say, that you don't see 'em anywheres in partickler but off the
Malabar coast."
Desmond was soon able to take stock of the vessel. It was broad in
proportion to its length, narrowing from the middle to the end, and
having a projecting prow like the old-fashioned galleys of which he had
seen pictures. The prow was covered with a deck, level with the main deck
of the vessel, but with a bulkhead between this and the forecastle.
"En't she pitchin'!" remarked Bulger, standing by Desmond's side. "You
couldn't expect nothing else of a craft built that shape. Look at the
water pourin' off her; why, I may be wrong, but I'll lay my best breeches
she's a-founderin'."
As usual, Bulger was right. When the grab was overhauled, the men on
board, dark-skinned Marathas with very scanty clothing, made signs that
they were in distress.
"Throw her into the wind," shouted the captain.
Mr. Toley at the wheel put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, and
with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grab
were taken off. As they came aboard the Good Intent, Diggle, who was
leaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, and
moved towards the taffrail. One of the newcomers, a fine muscular fellow,
seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then salaamed.
The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and grasped his
hand with the familiarity of old friendship.
"You know the man, Mr. Diggle?" said the captain.
"Yes, truly. The Gentoos and I are in a sense comrades in arms. His name
is Hybati; he's a Maratha."
"What's he jabbering about?"
The man was talking rapidly and earnestly.
"He says, captain," returned Diggle, with a smile, "that he hopes you
will send and fetch the crew's rice on board. They won't eat our
food--afraid of losing caste."
"I'll be hang if I launch the longboat again. The grab won't live another
five minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew against a
hundred of these dirty Moors."
"They'll starve otherwise, captain."
"Well, let 'em starve. I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship. Beggars
mustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest English
vittles they don't deserve to eat at all."
Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left to
their fate. Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart, and,
amid cries from the Marathas she keeled over and sank.
When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how he
came to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he had
been in command of Angria's fortress of Suwarndrug, which was so strong
that he had believed it able to withstand any attacks. But one day a
number of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared between
the mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated, and had
begun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins. The chief
damage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men had made the
best defense they could, but the gunners were shot down by musket fire
from the round tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire to a thatched
house within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed to attempt to
extinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine blew up, and
the inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers, fled to the
shore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats. Hybati had
kept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive succor; but
under cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore landed half
his seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and cutting down the sally port
with their axes forced their way in.
Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and was
lucky in pushing off in the grab, unobserved by the enemy. The winds,
however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along the
coast and then driven far out to sea. With the breaking of the monsoon a
violent squall had dismasted the grab and shattered her bulkhead; she was
continually shipping water, and, as the sahib saw, was at the point of
sinking when the English ship came up.
Such was the Maratha's story, as by and by it became common property on
board the Good Intent. Of all the crew Desmond was perhaps the most
interested. To the others there was nothing novel in the sight of the
Indians; but to him they stood for romance, the embodiment of all the
tales he had heard and all the dreams he had dreamed of this wonderful
country in the East. He was now assured that he was actually within reach
of his desired haven; and he hoped shortly to see an end of the
disappointments and hardships, the toils and distresses, of the past
seven months.
He was eager to learn more of these Marathas, and their fortress, and the
circumstances of the recent fight. Bulger was willing to tell all he
knew; but his information was not very exact, and Desmond did not hear
the full story till long after.
The Malabar coast had long been the haunt of Maratha pirates, who
interfered greatly with the native trade between India and Arabia and
Persia. In defense of the interests of his Mohammedan subjects the Mogul
emperor at length, in the early part of the eighteenth century, fitted
out a fleet, under the command of an admiral known as the Sidi. But there
happened to be among the Marathas at that time a warrior of great daring
and resource, one Kunaji Angria. This man first defeated the Sidi, then,
in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own sovereign, and set
up as an independent ruler.
By means of a well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himself
master of place after place along the coast, including the Maratha
fortress at Suwarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria. His successors,
who adopted in turn the dynastic name of Angria, followed up Kunaji's
conquest, until by the year 1750 the ruling Angria was in possession of a
strip of territory on the mainland a hundred and eighty miles long and
about forty broad, together with many small adjacent islands.
For the defense of this little piratical state Angria's Marathas
constructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions and
displaying no small measure of engineering skill. From these strongholds
they made depredations by sea and land, not only upon their native
neighbors, but also upon the European traders, English, Dutch, and
Portuguese; swooping down on unprotected merchant vessels and even
presuming to attack warships. Several expeditions had been directed
against them, but always in vain; and when in 1754 the chief of that
date, Tulaji Angria, known to Europeans as the Pirate, burnt two large
Dutch vessels of fifty and thirty-six guns respectively, and captured a
smaller one of eighteen guns, he boasted in his elation that he would
soon be master of the Indian seas.
But a term was about to be put to his insolence and his depredations. On
March twenty-second, 1755, Commodore William James, commander of the East
India Company's marine force, set sail from Bombay in the Protector of
forty-four guns, with the Swallow of sixteen guns, and two bomb vessels.
With the assistance of a Maratha fleet he had attacked the island
fortress of Suwarndrug, and captured it, as Hybati had related. A few
days afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island of
Bancoote, six miles north of Suwarndrug, surrendered. The Maratha rajah,
Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified places
which had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered the
English commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others of
Angria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was recalled
to Bombay.
The spot at which the Good Intent had fallen in with the sinking grab was
about eighty miles from the Indian coast, and Captain Barker expected to
sight land next day. No one was more delighted at the prospect than
Desmond. Leaving out of account the miseries of the long voyage, he felt
that now he was within reach of the goal of his hopes. The future was all
uncertain; he was no longer inclined to trust his fortunes to Diggle, for
though he could not believe that the man had deliberately practised
against his life, he had with good reason lost confidence in him, and
what he had learned from Bulger threw a new light on his past career.
One thing puzzled him. If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotected
ships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why was
Captain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy? In her palmy days
as an East Indiaman the Good Intent had carried a dozen nine-pounders on
her upper deck and six on the quarterdeck; and Bulger had said that under
a stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat half a dozen
three-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate stronghold at
Gheria. But now she had only half a dozen guns all told, and even had she
possessed the full armament there were not men enough to work them, for
her complement of forty men was only half what it had been when she
sailed under the Company's flag.
Desmond confided his puzzlement to Bulger. The seaman laughed.
"Why, bless 'ee, we en't a-goin' to run into no danger. Trust Cap'n
Barker for that. You en't supercargo, to be sure; but who do you think
them guns and round shots in the hold be for? Why, the Pirate himself.
And he'll pay a good price for 'em, too."
"Do you mean to say that English merchants supply Angria with weapons to
fight against their own countrymen?"
"Well, blest if you en't a innocent. In course they do. The guns en't
always fust-class metal, to be sure; but what's the odds? The interlopers
ha' got to live."
"I don't call that right. It's not patriotic."
"Patry what?"
"Patriotic--a right way of thinking of one's own country. An Englishman
isn't worth the name who helps England's enemies."
Bulger looked at him in amazement. The idea of patriotism was evidently
new to him.
"I'll have to put that there notion in my pipe and smoke it," he said.
"I'd fight any mounseer, or Dutchman, or Portuguee as soon as look at
him, 'tis on'y natural; but if a mounseer likes to give me twopence for a
thing that's worth a penny--why, I'll say thank 'ee and axe
him--leastways if there's any matey by as knows the lingo--to buy
another."
Shortly after dawn next morning the lookout reported four vessels to
windward. From their appearance Captain Barker at once concluded that two
were Company's ships, with an escort of a couple of grabs. As he was
still scanning them he was joined by Diggle, with whom he entered into
conversation.
"They're making for Bombay, I reckon," said the captain.
"I take it we don't wish to come to close quarters with them, Barker?"
"By thunder, no! But if we hold our present course we're bound to pass
within hailing distance. Better put 'em off the scent."
He altered the vessel's course a point or two with the object of passing
to windward of the strangers, as if steering for the Portuguese port of
Goa.
"They are running up their colors," remarked Diggle, half an hour later.
"British, as I thought. We'll hoist Portuguese."
A minute or two later a puff of smoke was observed to sally from the
larger of the two grabs, followed in a few seconds by the boom of a gun.
"A call to us to heave to," said Bulger, in answer to Desmond's inquiry.
"The unbelievin' critters thinks that Portuguee rag is all my eye."
But the Good Intent was by this time to windward of the vessels, and
Captain Barker, standing on the quarterdeck, paid no heed to the signal.
After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the grab, and a
round shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the Good Intent's
bows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and preparing to alter
her course in pursuit. This movement was at once copied by the other
three vessels, but being at least half a mile ahead of the grab that had
fired, they were a long distance astern when the chase--for chase it was
to be--began.
Captain Barker watched the grab with the eyes of a lynx. The Good Intent
had run out of range while the grab was being put about; but the captain
knew very well that the pursuer could sail much closer to the wind than
his own vessel, and that his only chance was to beat off the leading boat
before the others had time to come up.
It required very little at any time to put Captain Barker into a rage,
and his demeanor was watched now with different feelings by different
members of the crew. Diggle alone appeared unconcerned; he was smiling as
he lolled against the mast.
"They'll fire at me, will they?" growled the captain with a curse. "And
chase me, will they? By jimmy, they shall sink me before I surrender!"
"Degeneres animos timor arguit," quoted Diggle, smiling.
"Argue it? I'll be hanged if I argue it! They're not king's ships to take
it on 'emselves to stop me on the high seas! If the Company wants to
prevent me from honest trading in these waters let 'em go to law, and be
hanged to 'em! Talk of arguing! Lawyer's work. Humph!"
"You mistake, Barker. The Roman fellow whose words slipped out of my
mouth almost unawares said nothing of arguing. 'Fear is the mark of only
base minds': so it runs in English, captain; which is as much as to say
that Captain Ben Barker is not the man to haul down his colors in a
hurry."
"You're right there. Another shot! That's their argument: well, Ben
Barker can talk that way as well as another."
He called up the boatswain. Shortly afterwards the order was piped, "Up
all hammocks!" The men quickly stowed their bedding, secured it with
lashings, and carried it to the appointed places on the quarterdeck,
poop, or forecastle. Meanwhile the boatswain and his mates secured the
yards; the ship's carpenter brought up shot plugs for repairing any
breeches made under the waterline; and the gunners looked to the cannon
and prepared charges for them and the small arms.
Bulger was in charge of the twelve-pounder aft, and Mr. Toley had tolled
off Desmond to assist him. They stood side by side watching the progress
of the grab, which gained steadily in spite of the plunging due to its
curious build. Presently another shot came from her; it shattered the
belfry on the forecastle of the Good Intent, and splashed into the sea a
hundred yards ahead.
"They make good practice, for sartin," remarked Bulger. "I may be wrong,
but I'll lay my life there be old man-o'-war's men aboard. I mind me when
I was with Captain Golightly on the Minotaur--"
But Bulger's yarn was intercepted. At that moment the boatswain piped,
"All hands to quarters!" In a surprisingly short time all timber was
cleared away, the galley fire was extinguished, the yards slung, the deck
strewn with wet sand, and sails, booms, and boats liberally drenched with
water. The gun captains, each with his crew, cast loose the lashings of
their weapons and struck open the ports. The tompions was taken out; the
sponge, rammer, crows and handspikes placed in readiness, and all awaited
eagerly the word for the action to begin.
"'Tis about time we opened our mouths at 'em," said Bulger. "The next
bolus they send us as like as not will bring the spars a-rattlin' about
our ears. To be sure it goes against my stummick to fire on old
messmates; but it en't in Englishmen to hold their noses and swallow
pills o' that there size. We'll load up all ready, mateys."
He stripped to the waist, and tied a handkerchief over his ears. Desmond
and the men followed his example. Then one of them sponged the bore,
another inserted the cartridge, containing three pounds of powder, by
means of a long ladle, a third shoved in a wad of rope yarn. This having
been driven home by the rammer, the round shot was inserted, and covered
like the cartridge with a wad. Then Bulger took his priming iron, an
instrument like a long thin corkscrew, and thrust it into the touch hole
to clear the vent and make an incision in the cartridge. Removing the
priming iron, he replaced it by the priming tube--a thin tapering tube
with very narrow bore. Into this he poured a quantity of fine mealed
powder; then he laid a train of the same powder in the little groove cut
in the gun from the touch hole towards the breech. With the end of his
powder horn he slightly bruised the train, and the gun only awaited a
spark from the match.
Everything was done very quickly, and Desmond watched the seamen with
admiration. He himself had charge of the linstock, about which was wound
several matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick steeped in
lye. They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly that they
would last for several hours.
"Now, we're shipshape," said Bulger. "Mind you, Burke, don't come to far
for'ard with your linstock. I don't want the train fired with no sparks
afore I'm ready. And 'ware o' the breech; she'll kick like a jumping
jackass when the shot flies out of her, an'll knock your teeth out afore
you can say Jack Robinson--
"Ah! there's the word at last; now, mateys, here goes!"
He laid the gun, waited for the ship to rise from a roll, and then took
one of the matches, gently blew its smoldering end, and applied the
glowing wick to the bruised part of the priming. There was a flash, a
roar, and before Desmond could see the effect of the shot Bulger had
closed the vent, the gun was run in, and the sponger was at work cleaning
the chamber.
As the black smoke cleared away it was apparent that the seaman had not
forgotten his cunning. The shot had struck the grab on the deck of the
prow and smashed into the forecastle. But the bow chasers were apparently
uninjured, for they replied a few seconds later.
"Ah! There's a wunner!" said Bulger admiringly.
A shot had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the Good Intent,
scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on the
second mate and a seaman on the quarterdeck. A jagged end of the wood
flying high struck Diggle on the left cheek. He wiped away the blood
imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among his
defects.
Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat. Shouting an order to Bulger
and the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern chasers, he
prepared to fall off and bring the Good Intent's broadside to bear on the
enemy.
But the next shot was decisive. Diggle had quietly strolled down to the
gun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain,
in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the priming
was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main,
mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. The
shot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails and
rigging, went by the board.
A wild cheer from the crew of the Good Intent acclaimed the excellent
shot.
"By thunder!" said Bulger to Desmond. "Diggle may be a rogue and a
vagabond, but he knows how to train a gun."
Captain Barker signified his approval by a tremendous mouth-filling oath.
But he was not yet safe. The second grab was following hard in the wake
of the first; and it was plain that the two Indiamen were both somewhat
faster than the Good Intent; for during the running fight that had just
ended so disastrously for the grab, they had considerably lessened the
gap between them and their quarry. Captain Barker watched them with an
expression of fierce determination, but not without anxiety. If they
should come within striking distance it was impossible to withstand
successfully their heavier armament and larger crews. The firing had
ceased: each vessel had crowded on all sail; and the brisk breeze must
soon bring pursuer and pursued to a close engagement which could have
only one result.
"I may be wrong, but seems to me we'd better say our prayers," Bulger
remarked grimly to his gun crew.
But Desmond, gazing up at the shrouds, said suddenly:
"The wind's dropping. Look!"
It was true. Before the monsoon sets in in earnest it not unfrequently
happens that the wind veers fitfully; a squall is succeeded almost
instantaneously by a calm. So it was now. In less than an hour all five
vessels were becalmed; and when night fell three miles separated the Good
Intent from the second grab; the Indiamen lay a mile farther astern; and
the damaged vessel was out of sight.
Captain Barker took counsel with his officers. He expected to be attacked
during the night by the united boats of the pursuing fleet. Under cover
of darkness they would be able to creep up close and board the vessel,
and the captain knew well that if taken he would be treated as a pirate.
His papers were made out for Philadelphia; he had hoisted Portuguese
colors, but the enemy at close quarters could easily see that the Good
Intent was British built; he had disabled one of the Company's vessels;
there would be no mercy for him.
He saw no chance of beating off the enemy; they would outnumber him by at
least five to one. Even if the wind sprang up again there was small
likelihood of escape. One or other of the pursuing vessels would almost
certainly overhaul him, and hold him until the others came up.
"'Tis a 'tarnal fix," he said.
"Methinks 'tis a case of actum est de nobis," remarked Diggle pleasantly.
"Confound you!" said the captain with a burst of anger. "What could I
expect with a gallows bird like you aboard? 'Tis enough to sink a vessel
without shot."
Diggle's face darkened. But in a moment his smile returned.
"You are overwrought, captain," he said; "you are unstrung. 'Twould be
ridiculous to take amiss words said in haste. In cold blood--well, you
know me, Captain Barker. I will leave you to recover from your brief
madness."
He went below. The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the other
officers. Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simple
reason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented his
abuse, but went quietly his own way. He listened now for a quarter of an
hour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured the
vials of his wrath upon everything under the sun. When the captain had
come to an end, and sunk into an estate of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toley
said quietly:
"'Tis all you say, sir, and more. I guess I've never seen a harder case.
But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of idea into
my brain."
"That don't happen often. What is it?"
"Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o' what you was saying was
just this. How would it be to take soundings?"
"So, that's your notion, is it? Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of
'em? You're always taking soundings! What in the name of thunder do you
want to take soundings for?"
"Nothing particular, cap'n. That was the kind o' notion that come of what
you was saying. Of course it depends on the depths hereabouts."
"Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that's like to come of
'em. Darned if I ain't got the most lubberly company ever mortal man was
plagued with. Officers and men, there en't one of you as is worth your
salt, and you with your long face and your notions--why, hang me, you're
no more good than the dirtiest waister afloat."
Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder. After the captain's
outburst none of the group dared to utter a word. This pleased him no
better; he cursed them all for standing mum; and spent ten minutes in
reviling them in turn. Then his passion appeared to have burnt itself
out. Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said roughly:
"Go and heave your lead, then, and be hanged to it."
Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave the
deep-sea lead. The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and
weighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of the
vessel's drift.
"By the mark sixty, less five," sang out the man when the lead touched
the bottom.
"I guess that'll do," said the first mate, returning to the quarterdeck.
"Well, what about your notion?" said the captain scornfully. But he
listened quietly and with an intent look upon his weatherbeaten face as
Mr. Toley explained.
"You see, sir," he said, "while you was talking just now, I sort o' saw
that if they attack us, 'twon't be for at least two hours after dark. The
boats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won't
hurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength left
to 'em. Well, they'll take our bearings, of course. Thinks I, owing to
what you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so? The
boats 'ud miss us in the darkness."
"That's so," ejaculated the captain; "and what then?"
"Well, sir, 'tis there my idea of taking soundings comes in. The Good
Intent can't be towed, not with our handful of men; but why shouldn't she
be kedged? That's the notion, sir; and I guess you'll think it over."
"By jimmy, Toley, you en't come out o' Salem, Massachusetts, for nothing.
'Tis a notion, a rare one; Ben Barker en't the man to bear a grudge, and
I take back them words o' mine--leastways some on 'em.
"Bo'sun, get ready to lower the longboat."
The longboat was lowered, out of sight of the enemy. A kedge anchor,
fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it was
sufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boat
invisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the Good
Intent's previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid out
as the boat drew away. When it had gone about a fifth of a mile from the
vessel the kedge was dropped, and a signal was given by hauling on the
rope.
"Clap on, men!" cried Captain Barker. "Get a good purchase, and none of
your singsong; avast all jabber."
The crew manned the windlass and began with a will to haul on the cable
in dead silence. The vessel was slowly warped ahead. Meanwhile the
longboat was returning; when she reached the side of the Good Intent, a
second kedge was lowered into her, and again she put off, to drop the
anchor two cables' length beyond the first, so that when the ship had
tripped that, the second was ready to be hauled on.
When the Good Intent had been thus warped a mile from her position at
nightfall, Captain Parker ordered the operation to be stopped. To avoid
noise the boat was not hoisted in. No lights were shown, and the sky
being somewhat overcast, the boat's crew found that the ship was
invisible at the distance of a fourth of a cable's length.
"I may be wrong," said Bulger to Desmond, "but I don't believe kedgin'
was ever done so far from harbor afore. I allers thought there was
something in that long head of Mr. Toley, though, to be sure, there en't
no call for him to pull a long face, too."
An hour passed after the loading had been stopped. All on board the Good
Intent remained silent, speaking, if they spoke at all, in whispers.
There had been no signs of the expected attack. Desmond was leaning on
the gunwale, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the enemy. But his ears
gave him the first intimation of their approach. He heard a faint
creaking, as of oars in rowlocks, and stepped back to where Bulger was
leaning against the mast.
"There they come," he said.
The sound had already reached Captain Barker's ears. It was faint;
doubtless the oars were muffled. The ship was rolling lazily; save for
the creaking nothing was heard but the lapping of the ripples against the
hull. So still was the night that the slightest sound must travel far,
and the captain remarked in a whisper to Mr. Toley that he guessed the
approaching boats to be at least six cables' lengths distant.
Officers and men listened intently. The creaking grew no louder; on the
contrary, it gradually became fainter, and at last died away. There was a
long silence, broken only by what sounded like a low hail some
considerable distance away.
"They're musterin' the boats," said Bulger, with a chuckle. "I may be
wrong, but I'll bet my breeches they find they've overshot the mark. Now
they'll scatter and try to nose us out."
Another hour of anxious suspense slowly passed, and still nothing had
happened. Then suddenly a blue light flashed for a few moments on the
blackness of the sea, answered almost instantaneously by a rocket from
another quarter. It was clear that the boats, having signaled that the
search had failed, had been recalled by the rocket to the fleet.
"By thunder, Mr. Toley, you've done the trick!" said the captain.
"I guess we don't get our living by making mistakes--not in Salem,
Massachusetts," returned the first mate with his sad smile.
Through the night the watch was kept with more than ordinary vigilance,
but nothing occurred to give Captain Barker anxiety. With morning light
the enemy could be seen far astern.