A SEA FIGHT
Meanwhile the Chinks with absolute imperturbability and under the
orders of Charley, were getting the boat on board. As it came on deck
Candon appeared.
“She’s come to,” said Candon. “I’ve stuck her in the bunk in the after
cabin, but she’s so rattled she won’t speak—just lays there. Hurry up
with the anchor, you boys. Listen!”
From shoreward through the night came sounds, far-away shouting and
then the throb of a gong.
“Those guys are collecting the hatchet men,” cried Hank, “they’ll maybe
try and cut us off from the next bay—there was a boat on the sands.
Lord! and I’ve dropped my Lugger.”
“I’ve got mine,” said George.
“Mine’s in the cabin,” said Candon, “get the windlass going and I’ll
start the engine. Give me a call when the mud hook’s up and look
slippy.” He dived below and as he dived a loose bunt of sail puffed out
and a breeze from the nor’west laid its fingers on the cheek of Hank.
“Wind’s coming,” cried Hank. “Leave the windlass, get to the halyards.
Hi! Charley there, look alive, man. Your throat and peak halyards—Bud,
lay forward and get the gaskets off the jib.” He rushed to the hatch of
the engine room. “Candon, below there! Wind’s coming, I’m getting sail
on her, that damned junk will lay for us sure and I’m not trusting the
engine any.” He rushed back to the wheel and stood whilst the mainsail,
fore and jib were got on her. Then came the sound of the winch and the
anchor came home whilst the slatting canvas filled and Hank turned the
spokes of the wheel setting her on a course south by east.
Candon’s head bobbed up from below.
“I can’t get the durned thing to go,” said he.
“Never mind,” said Hank, “the wind’s freshening.”
As he spoke it breezed up strong, the mainsheet tautened and the boom
lifted as the sails bellied hard against the stars and the _Wear Jack_
leaned over to it, boosting the ebony water to snow.
Candon took the wheel from Hank.
“It’s bad luck we have to run right past them,” said he as the next bay
opened, showing the junk lit up as if for a festival and the fires on
the beach.
“They’ll have had time to collect their wits and man the junk and
they’ll know it’s not the police.”
“Oh, we’ve got the heels of them,” said Hank.
“Hope so,” said the other. “Look! they’re getting sail on her.”
In the dim light the vast lug sail of the junk could be seen rising and
even before it fully took the wind, she was moving.
“They’re rowing!” cried George. “Look! they’ve got the sweeps out!”
Candon looked. The fag end of a moon rising over the hills of
California showed now clearly the junk putting out to sea ahead of
them, the flash and movement of the sweeps, the great lubberly lateen
sail being trimmed and the foam dashing from the bow.
“They’ve got us,” said Hank, “get your guns ready if it comes to
boarding. Where’s yours, B. C.?” “Down in the cabin?—one sec.” He dived
below. Then he came up again. “Cabin door’s bolted.”
“Whach you say?” cried Candon.
“Cabin door’s bolted, can’t get in—”
“Maybe it’s stuck,” said Candon. “Don’t bother with it, we’ve no time
for fiddling, lay hold of something to bat these chaps with if they try
and board. Hell! but she’s racing,—that junk.”
She was. Urged by wind and oars, making ahead to hit the course of the
_Wear Jack_ at an acute angle, she seemed bound to do it.
“What’s her game?” asked George.
“Foul us, get broadside on and board us,” replied Candon.
“How’d it be to put her about and get her on a wind?” asked Hank.
“No use, going about would give her lengths—those junks shoot up into
the wind like all possessed and the sweeps help—Leave her to me.”
The _Wear Jack_ kept on.
Racing now almost parallel—the junk ahead with sweeps drawn in, the two
boats held only half a cable length apart. They could see the junk’s
deck swarming, the hatchet men, now that they had got their courage
were voicing it, and yells like the strident sound of tearing calico
came mixed with the wash of the waves and the beating of a gong. Closer
they got, still closer, the _Wear Jack_ gaining under a strengthening
flaw of the wind. Then, with a shout and with a lightning movement,
Candon, to the horror of the others, put his helm hard over. The _Wear
Jack_ checked, shied just like a horse, and with a thunder of slatting
canvas, and rattling blocks, plunged at the junk, ramming her abaft
the chunky mast. The fellow at the steering sweep shifted his helm to
get clear, the junk forged to starboard and the bowsprit of the _Wear
Jack_, like a clutching hand, snapped stay after stay bringing the
great sail down like a Venetian blind over the crowd on deck.
“We’re free,” shouted Candon, “bowsprit’s half gone. No matter, get
forward, Hank, and clear the raffle!”
Then as the _Wear Jack_ forged ahead, the Kiro Shiwo drifting her
faster than the junk, the wind took her sails.
“They aren’t sinking, are they?” cried George.
“Sinking—nothing,” replied B. C., turning his head. “They’ll get back
ashore with their sweeps. If they were, it’d be a good job. What’s the
damage, Hank?”
“Bob stay gone,” came Hank’s voice. “Bowsprit seems all right—Lord,
it’s a miracle.”
Then he came aft having set Charley and the Chinks on repairs.
“B. C.,” said Hank, “you’re a marvel. What put it into your nut to do
it?”
“It came to me,” said the other, “they’d have done it to us in another
tick, got fast and downed us. Hit first—that’s my motto.”
“Well,” said Hank, “you’ve done it.”
Away back in the moonlight across the heave of the sea, they could make
out the dismasted wreck floundering like a drunken thing, listing to
starboard with the weight of her broken wing, _gastados_, out of the
running—done for.