North Latitude 23 1/2, Longitude East 113; the time March of this same
year; the wind southerly; the port Whampoa in the Canton River. Ships at
anchor reared their tall masts, here and there; and the broad stream was
enlivened and colored by junks and boats of all sizes and vivid hues,
propelled on the screw principle by a great scull at the stern, with
projecting handles for the crew to work; and at times a gorgeous mandarin
boat, with two great glaring eyes set in the bows, came flying, rowed
with forty paddles by an armed crew, whose shields hung on the gunwale
and flashed fire in the sunbeams; the mandarin, in conical and buttoned
hat, sitting on the top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, alias
opium, while his gong boomed and his boat flew fourteen miles an hour,
and all things scuttled out of his celestial way. And there, looking
majestically down on all these water ants, the huge _Agra_, cynosure of
so many loving eyes and loving hearts in England, lay at her moorings;
homeward bound.
Her tea not being yet on board, the ship's hull floated high as a castle,
and to the subtle, intellectual, doll-faced, bolus-eyed people, that
sculled to and fro, busy as bees, though looking forked mushrooms, she
sounded like a vast musical shell: for a lusty harmony of many mellow
voices vibrated in her great cavities, and made the air ring cheerily
around her. The vocalists were the Cyclops, to judge by the tremendous
thumps that kept clean time to their sturdy tune. Yet it was but human
labor, so heavy and so knowing, that it had called in music to help. It
was the third mate and his gang completing his floor to receive the
coming tea chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred
bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had
laid tons of rough saltpetre, in 200 lb. gunny-bags: and was now mashing
it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist,
stood in line, with huge wooden beetles, called commanders, and lifted
them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true
nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with ponderous bump on the
last note in each bar:--
[Illustration: Song sung by labor gang.]
And so up to fifteen, when the stave was concluded with a shrill "Spell,
oh!" and the gang relieved streaming with perspiration. When the
saltpetre was well mashed, they rolled ton waterbutts on it, till the
floor was like a billiard table. A fleet of chop boats then began to
arrive, so many per day, with the tea chests. Mr. Grey proceeded to lay
the first tier on his saltpetre floor, and then built the chests, tier
upon tier, beginning at the sides, and leaving in the middle a lane
somewhat narrower than a tea chest. Then he applied a screw jack to the
chests on both sides, and so enlarged his central aperture, and forced
the remaining tea chests in; and behold the enormous cargo packed as
tight as ever shopkeeper packed a box--19,806 chests, 60 half chests, 50
quarter chests.
While Mr. Grey was contemplating his work with singular satisfaction, a
small boat from Canton came alongside, and Mr. Tickell, midshipman, ran
up the side, skipped on the quarter-deck, saluted it first, and then the
first mate; and gave him a line from the captain, desiring him to take
the ship down to Second Bar--for her water--at the turn of the tide.
Two hours after receipt of this order the ship swung to the ebb.
Instantly Mr. Sharpe unmoored, and the _Agra_ began her famous voyage,
with her head at right angles to her course; for the wind being foul, all
Sharpe could do was to set his topsails, driver, and jib, and keep her in
the tide way, and clear of the numerous craft, by backing or filling as
the case required; which he did with considerable dexterity, making the
sails steer the helm for the nonce: he crossed the Bar at sunset, and
brought to with the best bower anchor in five fathoms and a half. Here
they began to take in their water, and on the fifth day the six-oared gig
was ordered up to Canton for the captain. The next afternoon he passed
the ship in her, going down the river, to Lin Tin, to board the Chinese
admiral for his chop, or permission to leave China. All night the _Agra_
showed three lights at her mizzen peak for him, and kept a sharp lookout.
But he did not come: he was having a very serious talk with the Chinese
admiral; at daybreak, however, the gig was reported in sight: Sharpe told
one of the midshipmen to call the boatswain and man the side. Soon the
gig ran alongside; two of the ship's boys jumped like monkeys over the
bulwarks, lighting, one on the main channels, the other on the mid-ship
port, and put the side ropes assiduously in the captain's hands; he
bestowed a slight paternal smile on them, the first the imps had ever
received from an officer, and went lightly up the sides. The moment his
foot touched the deck, the boatswain gave a frightful shrill whistle; the
men at the sides uncovered, the captain saluted the quarter-deck, and all
the officers saluted him, which he returned, and stepping for a moment to
the weather side of his deck, gave the loud command, "All hands heave
anchor." He then directed Mr. Sharpe to get what sail he could on the
ship, the wind being now westerly, and dived into his cabin.
The boatswain piped three shrill pipes, and "All hands up anchor" was
thrice repeated forward, followed by private admonitions, "Rouse and
bitt!" "Show a leg!" etc., and up tumbled the crew with "homeward bound"
written on their tanned faces.
(Pipe.) "Up all hammocks!"
In ten minutes the ninety and odd hammocks were all stowed neatly in the
netting, and covered with a snowy hammock cloth; and the hands were
active, unbitting the cable, shipping the capstan bars, etc.
"All ready below, sir," cried a voice.
"Man the bars," returned Mr. Sharpe from the quarter-deck. "Play up,
fifer. Heave away!"
Out broke the merry fife with a rhythmical tune, and tramp, tramp, tramp
went a hundred and twenty feet round and round, and, with brawny chests
pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the
ship up to her anchor, drowning the fife at intervals with their sturdy
song, as pat to their feet as an echo:
Heave with a will ye jolly boys,
Heave around:
We're off from Chainee, jolly boys,
Homeward bound.
"Short stay apeak, sir," roars the boatswain from forward.
"Unship the bars. Way aloft. Loose sails. Let fall!"
The ship being now over her anchor, and the topsails set, the capstan
bars were shipped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger
grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave, and then
run up with a luff tackle and secured; the ship's head cast to port:
"Up with a jib! man the topsail halyards! all hands make sail!" Round
she came slow and majestically; the sails filled, and the good ship bore
away for England.
She made the Bogue forts in three or four tacks, and there she had to
come to again for another chop, China being a place as hard to get into
as Heaven, and to get out of as--Chancery. At three P. M. she was at
Macao, and hove to four miles from the land, to take in her passengers.
A gun was fired from the forecastle. No boats came off. Sharpe began to
fret: for the wind, though light, had now got to the N.W., and they were
wasting it. After a while the captain came on deck, and ordered all the
carronades to be scaled. The eight heavy reports bellowed the great
ship's impatience across the water, and out pulled two boats with the
passengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered the gunner to
load the carronades with shot, and secure and apron them. . . .
The _Agra_ had already shown great sailing qualities: the log was hove at
sundown and gave eleven knots; so that with a good breeze abaft few
fore-and-aft-rigged pirates could overhaul her. And this wind carried
her swiftly past one nest of them at all events; the Ladrone Isles. At
nine P. M. all the lights were ordered out. Mrs. Beresford had brought a
novel on board, and refused to comply; the master-at-arms insisted; she
threatened him with the vengeance of the Company, the premier, and the
nobility and gentry of the British realm. The master-at-arms, finding he
had no chance in argument, doused the glim--pitiable resource of a weak
disputant--then basely fled the rhetorical consequences.
The northerly breeze died out, and light variable winds baffled the ship.
It was the 6th April ere she passed the Macclesfield Bank in latitude 16.
And now they sailed for many days out of sight of land; Dodd's chest
expanded: his main anxiety at this part of the voyage lay in the state
cabin; of all the perils of the sea none shakes a sailor like fire. He
set a watch day and night on that spoiled child.
On the 1st of May they passed the great Nantuna, and got among the
Bornese and Malay Islands: at which the captain's glass began to
sweep the horizon again: and night and day at the dizzy
foretop-gallant-masthead he perched an eye.
They crossed the line in longitude 107, with a slight breeze, but soon
fell into the Dolddrums. A dead calm, and nothing to do but kill
time. . . .
After lying a week like a dead log on the calm but heaving waters came a
few light puffs in the upper air and inflated the topsails only: the ship
crawled southward, the crew whistling for wind.
At last, one afternoon, it began to rain, and after the rain came a gale
from the eastward. The watchful skipper saw it purple the water to
windward, and ordered the topsails to be reefed and the lee ports closed.
This last order seemed an excess of precaution; but Dodd was not yet
thoroughly acquainted with his ship's qualities: and the hard cash round
his neck made him cautious. The lee ports were closed, all but one, and
that was lowered. Mr. Grey was working a problem in his cabin, and
wanted a little light and a little air, so he just dropped his port; but,
not to deviate from the spirit of his captain's instructions, he fastened
a tackle to it; that he might have mechanical force to close it with
should the ship lie over.
Down came the gale with a whoo, and made all crack. The ship lay over
pretty much, and the sea poured in at Mr. Grey's port. He applied his
purchase to close it. But though his tackle gave him the force of a
dozen hands, he might as well have tried to move a mountain: on the
contrary, the tremendous sea rushed in and burst the port wide open.
Grey, after a vain struggle with its might, shrieked for help; down
tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction
was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain,
with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see,
had roared out, "Slack the main sheet!" The ship righted, and the port
came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists
in water and floating boxes. Grey barred the unlucky port, and went aft,
drenched in body, and wrecked in mind, to report his own fault. He found
the captain looking grim as death. He told him, almost crying, what he
had done, and how he had miscalculated the power of the water.
Dodd looked and saw his distress. "Let it be a lesson sir," said he,
sternly. "How many ships have been lost by this in fair weather, and not
a man saved to tell how the craft was fooled away?"
"Captain, bid me fling myself over the side, and I'll do it."
"Humph! I'm afraid I can't afford to lose a good officer for a fault
he--will--never--repeat."
It blew hard all night and till twelve the next day. The _Agra_ showed
her weak point: she rolled abominably. A dirty night came on. At eight
bells Mr. Grey touched by Dodd's clemency, and brimful of zeal, reported
a light in Mrs. Beresford's cabin. It had been put out as usual by the
master-at-arms; but the refractory one had relighted it.
"Go and take it away," said Dodd.
Soon screams were heard from the cabin. "Oh! mercy! mercy! I will not
be drowned in the dark."
Dodd, who had kept clear of her so long, went down and tried to reassure
her.
"Oh, the tempest! the tempest!" she cried. "AND TO BE DROWNED IN THE
DARK!"
"Tempest? It is blowing half a gale of wind; that is all."
"Half a gale! Ah, that is the way you always talk to us ladies. Oh,
pray give me my light, and send me a clergyman!"
Dodd took pity, and let her have her light, with a midshipman to watch
it. He even made her a hypocritical promise that, should there be one
grain of danger, he would lie to; but said he must not make a foul wind
of a fair one for a few lurches. The _Agra_ broke plenty of glass and
crockery though with her fair wind and her lee lurches.
Wind down at noon next day, and a dead calm.
At two P.M. the weather cleared; the sun came out high in heaven's
centre; and a balmy breeze from the west.
At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea was
gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples: it was the first
glowing smile of southern latitude. The night stole on so soft, so
clear, so balmy, all were loth to close their eyes on it: the passengers
lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear dip, and the Southern
Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of glorious stars most of us have
never seen, and never shall see in this world. No belching smoke
obscured, no plunging paddles deafened; all was musical; the soft air
sighing among the sails; the phosphorescent water bubbling from the
ship's bows; the murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued by the
great calm: home seemed near, all danger far; Peace ruled the sea, the
sky, the heart: the ship, making a track of white fire on the deep,
glided gently yet swiftly homeward, urged by snowy sails piled up like
alabaster towers against a violet sky, out of which looked a thousand
eyes of holy tranquil fire. So melted the sweet night away.
Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at the water's edge: and that
water blushed; now the streaks turned orange, and the waves below them
sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and settled on the ship's
white sails, the deck, and the faces; and with no more prologue, being so
near the line, up came majestically a huge, fiery, golden sun, and set
the sea flaming liquid topaz.
Instantly the lookout at the foretop-gallant-masthead hailed the deck
below.
"STRANGE SAIL! RIGHT AHEAD!"
The strange sail was reported to Captain Dodd, then dressing in his
cabin. He came soon after on deck and hailed the lookout: "Which way is
she standing?"
"Can't say, sir. Can't see her move any."
Dodd ordered the boatswain to pipe to breakfast; and taking his deck
glass went lightly up to the foretop-gallant-mast-crosstrees. Thence,
through the light haze of a glorious morning, he espied a long low
schooner, lateen-rigged, lying close under Point Leat, a small island
about nine miles distant on the weather bow; and nearly in the _Agra's_
course then approaching the Straits of Gaspar, 4 Latitude S.
"She is hove to," said Dodd, very gravely.
At eight o'clock, the stranger lay about two miles to windward; and still
hove to.
By this time all eyes were turned upon her, and half a dozen glasses.
Everybody, except the captain, delivered an opinion. She was a Greek
lying to for water: she was a Malay coming north with canes, and short of
hands: she was a pirate watching the Straits.
The captain leaned silent and sombre with his arms on the bulwarks, and
watched the suspected craft.
Mr. Fullalove joined the group, and levelled a powerful glass, of his own
construction. His inspection was long and minute, and, while the glass
was at his eye, Sharpe asked him half in a whisper, could he make out
anything?
"Wal," said he, "the varmint looks considerably snaky." Then, without
moving his glass, he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were
trickling into his telescope at the lens, and out at the sight.
"One--two--four--seven, false ports."
There was a momentary murmur among the officers all round. But British
sailors are undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the deck with a
cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and
making comments; but he discerned no particular emotion nor anxiety in
what they said, nor in the grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a
brother seaman would though.
The next observation that trickled out of Fullalove's tube was
this: "I judge there are too few hands on deck, and too
many--white--eyeballs--glittering at the portholes."
"Confound it!" muttered Bayliss, uneasily; "how can you see that?"
Fullalove replied only by quietly handing his glass to Dodd. The
captain, thus appealed to, glued his eye to the tube.
"Well, sir; see the false ports, and the white eyebrows?" asked Sharpe,
ironically.
"I see this is the best glass I ever looked through," said Dodd doggedly,
without interrupting his inspection.
"I think he is a Malay pirate," said Mr. Grey.
Sharpe took him up very quickly, and, indeed, angrily: "Nonsense! And if
he is, he won't venture on a craft of this size."
"Says the whale to the swordfish," suggested Fullalove, with a little
guttural laugh.
The captain, with the American glass at his eye, turned half round to the
man at the wheel: "Starboard!"
"Starboard it is."
"Steer South South East."
"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was thus altered two points.
This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent in Mr. Sharpe's estimation. He
held his tongue as long as he could: but at last his surprise and
dissatisfaction burst out of him, "Won't that bring him out on us?"
"Very likely, sir," replied Dodd.
"Begging your pardon, captain, would it not be wiser to keep our course,
and show the blackguard we don't fear him?"
"When we _do_? Sharpe, he has made up his mind an hour ago whether to
lie still, or bite; my changing my course two points won't change his
mind; but it may make him declare it; and _I_ must know what he does
intend, before I run the ship into the narrows ahead."
"Oh, I see," said Sharpe, half convinced.
The alteration in the _Agra's_ course produced no movement on the part of
the mysterious schooner. She lay to under the land still, and with only
a few hands on deck, while the _Agra_ edged away from her and entered the
straits between Long Island and Point Leat, leaving the schooner about
two miles and a half distant to the N.W.
Ah! The stranger's deck swarms black with men.
His sham ports fell as if by magic, his guns grinned through the gaps
like black teeth; his huge foresail rose and filled, and out he came in
chase.
The breeze was a kiss from Heaven, the sky a vaulted sapphire, the sea a
million dimples of liquid, lucid, gold. . . .
The way the pirate dropped the mask, showed his black teeth, and bore up
in chase, was terrible: so dilates and bounds the sudden tiger on his
unwary prey. There were stout hearts among the officers of the peaceful
_Agra_; but danger in a new form shakes the brave; and this was their
first pirate: their dismay broke out in ejaculations not loud but
deep. . . .
"Sharpe," said Dodd, in a tone that conveyed no suspicion of the
newcomer, "set the royals, and flying jib.--Port!"
"Port it is," cried the man at the helm.
"Steer due South!" And, with these words in his mouth, Dodd dived to the
gun deck.
By this time elastic Sharpe had recovered the first shock; and the order
to crowd sail on the ship galled his pride and his manhood; he muttered,
indignantly, "The white feather!" This eased his mind, and he obeyed
orders briskly as ever. While he and his hands were setting every rag
the ship could carry on that tack, the other officers, having unluckily
no orders to execute, stood gloomy and helpless, with their eyes glued,
by a sort of sombre fascination, on that coming fate. . . .
Realize the situation, and the strange incongruity between the senses and
the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its beauty; beneath
a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed a blue sea, in whose waves
the tropical sun seemed to have fused his beams; and beneath that fair,
sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a balmy breeze over those smiling,
transparent, golden waves, a bloodthirsty Pirate bore down on them with a
crew of human tigers; and a lady babble babble babble babble babble
babble babbled in their quivering ears.
But now the captain came bustling on deck, eyed the loftier sails, saw
they were drawing well, appointed four midshipmen in a staff to convey
his orders; gave Bayliss charge of the carronades, Grey of the cutlasses,
and directed Mr. Tickell to break the bad news gently to Mrs. Beresford,
and to take her below to the orlop deck; ordered the purser to serve out
beef, biscuit, and grog to all hands, saying, "Men can't work on an empty
stomach: and fighting is hard work;" then beckoned the officers to come
round him. "Gentlemen," said he, confidentially, "in crowding sail on
this ship I had no hope of escaping that fellow on this tack, but I was,
and am, most anxious to gain the open sea, where I can square my yards
and run for it, if I see a chance. At present I shall carry on till he
comes up within range: and then, to keep the Company's canvas from being
shot to rags, I shall shorten sail; and to save ship and cargo and all
our lives, I shall fight while a plank of her swims. Better to be killed
in hot blood than walk the plank in cold."
The officers cheered faintly: the captain's dogged resolution stirred up
theirs. . . .
"Shorten sail to the taupsles and jib, get the colors ready on the
halyards, and then send the men aft. . . ."
Sail was no sooner shortened, and the crew ranged, than the captain came
briskly on deck, saluted, jumped on a carronade, and stood erect. He was
not the man to show the crew his forebodings.
(Pipe.) "Silence fore and aft."
"My men, the schooner coming up on our weather quarter is a Portuguese
pirate. His character is known; he scuttles all the ships he boards,
dishonors the women, and murders the crew. We cracked on to get out of
the narrows, and now we have shortened sail to fight this blackguard, and
teach him not to molest a British ship. I promise, in the Company's
name, twenty pounds prize money to every man before the mast if we beat
him off or out manoeuvre him; thirty if we sink him; and forty if we tow
him astern into a friendly port. Eight guns are clear below, three on
the weather side, five on the lee; for, if he knows his business, he will
come up on the lee quarter: if he doesn't, that is no fault of yours nor
mine. The muskets are all loaded, the cutlasses ground like razors--"
"Hurrah!"
"We have got women to defend--"
"Hurrah!"
"A good ship under our feet, the God of justice overhead, British hearts
in our bosoms, and British colors flying--run 'em up!--over our heads."
(The ship's colors flew up to the fore, and the Union Jack to the mizzen
peak.) "Now lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of her
(stamping on the deck) swims beneath my foot and--WHAT DO YOU SAY?"
The reply was a fierce "hurrah!" from a hundred throats, so loud, so
deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the
creeping-on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those
shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to
a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather
quarter. Arrived within a cable's length, he double reefed his foresail
to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next
moment a tongue of flame, and then a gash of smoke, issued from his lee
bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the _Agra's_ mizzen
top. He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent
the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship. This prologue
made the novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but
Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, "If we keep him aloof we are done for."
The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in succession, hulled the
_Agra_ amidships, and sent an eighteen pound ball through her foresail.
Most of the faces were pale on the quarter-deck; it was very trying to be
shot at, and hit, and make no return. The next double discharge sent one
shot smash through the stern cabin window, and splintered the bulwark
with another, wounding a seaman slightly.
"LIE DOWN FORWARD!" shouted Dodd, through his trumpet. "Bayliss, give
him a shot."
The carronade was fired with a tremendous report, but no visible effect.
The pirate crept nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid the
carronades, and firing those two heavy guns alternately into the devoted
ship. He hulled the _Agra_ now nearly every shot.
The two available carronades replied noisily, and jumped as usual; they
sent one thirty-two pound shot clean through the schooner's deck and
side; but that was literally all they did worth speaking of.
"Curse them!" cried Dodd; "load them with grape! They are not to be
trusted with ball. And all my eighteen-pounders dumb! The coward won't
come alongside and give them a chance."
At the next discharge the pirate chipped the mizzen mast, and knocked a
sailor into dead pieces on the forecastle. Dodd put his helm down ere
the smoke cleared, and got three carronades to bear, heavily laden with
grape. Several pirates fell, dead or wounded, on the crowded deck, and
some holes appeared in the foresail; this one interchange was quite in
favor of the ship.
But the lesson made the enemy more cautious; he crept nearer, but steered
so adroitly, now right astern, now on the quarter, that the ship could
seldom bring more than one carronade to bear, while he raked her fore and
aft with grape and ball.
In this alarming situation, Dodd kept as many of the men below as
possible; but, for all he could do four were killed and seven wounded.
Fullalove's word came too true: it was the swordfish and the whale: it
was a fight of hammer and anvil; one hit, the other made a noise.
Cautious and cruel, the pirate hung on the poor hulking creature's
quarters and raked her at point blank distance. He made her pass a
bitter time. And her captain! To see the splintering hull, the parting
shrouds, the shivered gear, and hear the shrieks and groans of his
wounded; and he unable to reply in kind! The sweat of agony poured down
his face. Oh, if he could but reach the open sea, and square his yards,
and make a long chase of it; perhaps fall in with aid. Wincing under
each heavy blow, he crept doggedly, patiently on, towards that one
visible hope.
At last, when the ship was cloven with shot, and peppered with grape, the
channel opened: in five minutes more he could put her dead before the
wind.
No. The pirate, on whose side luck had been from the first, got half a
broadside to bear at long musket shot, killed a midshipman by Dodd's
side, cut away two of the _Agra's_ mizzen shrouds, wounded the gaff: and
cut the jib stay; down fell the powerful sail into the water, and dragged
across the ship's forefoot, stopping her way to the open sea she panted
for, the mates groaned; the crew cheered stoutly, as British tars do in
any great disaster; the pirates yelled with ferocious triumph, like the
devils they looked.
But most human events, even calamities, have two sides. The _Agra_ being
brought almost to a standstill, the pirate forged ahead against his will,
and the combat took a new and terrible form. The elephant gun popped,
and the rifle cracked, in the _Agra's_ mizzen top, and the man at the
pirate's helm jumped into the air and fell dead: both Theorists claimed
him. Then the three carronades peppered him hotly; and he hurled an iron
shower back with fatal effect. Then at last the long 18-pounders on the
gun-deck got a word in. The old Niler was not the man to miss a vessel
alongside in a quiet sea; he sent two round shot clean through him; the
third splintered his bulwark, and swept across his deck.
"His masts! fire at his masts!" roared Dodd to Monk, through his trumpet;
he then got the jib clear, and made what sail he could without taking all
the hands from the guns.
This kept the vessels nearly alongside a few minutes, and the fight was
hot as fire. The pirate now for the first time hoisted his flag. It was
black as ink. His crew yelled as it rose: the Britons, instead of
quailing, cheered with fierce derision: the pirate's wild crew of yellow
Malays, black chinless Papuans, and bronzed Portuguese, served their side
guns, 12-pounders, well and with ferocious cries; the white Britons,
drunk with battle now, naked to the waist, grimed with powder, and
spotted like leopards with blood, their own and their mates', replied
with loud undaunted cheers, and deadly hail of grape from the
quarterdeck; while the master gunner and his mates loading with a
rapidity the mixed races opposed could not rival, hulled the schooner
well between wind and water, and then fired chain shot at her masts, as
ordered, and began to play the mischief with her shrouds and rigging.
Meantime, Fullalove and Kenealy, aided by Vespasian, who loaded, were
quietly butchering the pirate crew two a minute, and hoped to settle the
question they were fighting for; smooth-bore _v._ rifle: but unluckily
neither fired once without killing; so "there was nothing proven."
The pirate, bold as he was, got sick of fair fighting first; he hoisted
his mainsail and drew rapidly ahead, with a slight bearing to windward,
and dismounted a carronade and stove in the ship's quarter-boat, by way
of a parting kick.
The men hurled a contemptuous cheer after him; they thought they had
beaten him off. But Dodd knew better. He was but retiring a little way
to make a more deadly attack than ever: he would soon wear, and cross the
_Agra's_ defenceless bows, to rake her fore and aft at pistol-shot
distance; or grapple, and board the enfeebled ship two hundred strong.
Dodd flew to the helm, and with his own hands put it hard aweather, to
give the deck guns one more chance, the last, of sinking or disabling the
_Destroyer_. As the ship obeyed, and a deck gun bellowed below him, he
saw a vessel running out from Long Island, and coming swiftly up on his
lee quarter.
It was a schooner. Was she coming to his aid?
Horror! A black flag floated from her foremast head.
While Dodd's eyes were staring almost out of his head at this death-blow
to hope, Monk fired again; and just then a pale face came close to
Dodd's, and a solemn voice whispered in his ear: "Our ammunition is
nearly done!"
Dodd seized Sharpe's hand convulsively, and pointed to the pirate's
consort coming up to finish them; and said, with the calm of a brave
man's despair, "Cutlasses! and die hard!"
At that moment the master gunner fired his last gun. It sent a chain
shot on board the retiring pirate, took off a Portuguese head and spun it
clean into the sea ever so far to windward, and cut the schooner's
foremast so nearly through that it trembled and nodded, and presently
snapped with a loud crack, and came down like a broken tree, with the
yard and sail; the latter overlapping the deck and burying itself, black
flag and all, in the sea; and there, in one moment, lay the _Destroyer_
buffeting and wriggling--like a heron on the water with its long wing
broken--an utter cripple.
The victorious crew raised a stunning cheer.
"Silence!" roared Dodd, with his trumpet. "All hands make sail!"
He set his courses, bent a new jib, and stood out to windward close
hauled, in hopes to make a good offing, and then put his ship dead before
the wind, which was now rising to a stiff breeze. In doing this he
crossed the crippled pirate's bows, within eighty yards; and sore was the
temptation to rake him; but his ammunition being short, and his danger
being imminent from the other pirate, he had the self-command to resist
the great temptation.