Together they came with a crashing and rending,
While the sounds of the battle and tempest were blending.
_The Lost Ship_.
We will be true to you, most noble sir.
_Avator_.
Oh, spare my daughter! Take my wealth--I care not;
But spare my daughter.
_Old Play_.
Villain, forbear!
Throw down your arms--surrender.
_The Assault_.
The last fire from the _Falcon_ had made sad havoc among the crew of the
merchant vessel; two men were killed and three badly wounded by it.
Hence it was that, when the pirates were thronging the brig's side,
preparing to spring on board the ship, Captain Johnson had but nine men
to aid him in resisting the assault, the tenth being at the wheel. The
odds were fearfully against him, being more than three to one; the
pirate chief, leaving ten men to take care of the brig, had still
thirty-one men, besides those who had been placed _hors de combat_, with
whom to board the ship.
While John Coe was standing by the starboard guards of the brig,
prepared to spring on board of the ship, with every nerve wrought up to
its highest tension, he ejaculated prayers to the Almighty to guard him
from sin and guide him to goodness in this terrible crisis of his fate.
Just as the vessels were coming together, he felt his arm touched, and
turning, saw Ada by his side.
"For heaven's sake, madam," he said, in low but earnest tones, "what are
you doing here? Do go into the cabin and seek out its safest corner.
You are almost certain to lose your life here. This is no place for a
helpless woman."
"How can I stay there," she said, "while these horrible scenes are
taking place? I am inured to danger, and put no value on my life.
Besides, I feel impelled by a power within me, and which I cannot
resist, to take part in the scenes about to occur on board of that ship.
I put myself by your side, both because my husband would drive me away
from his, and because, of all who are about to board that vessel, you
alone have no evil in your heart, but are seeking to prevent it; and I
wish to aid you in that good work. See! I also am armed."
She showed a cutlass in her hand, and pointed to two double-barrelled
pistols in a belt round her waist.
"Keep closely by my side, then," said John, seeing her determination.
"I will do all that I can to protect you."
"Thank you," she replied.
John turned towards his other side; there, near to him, stood Billy
Bowsprit.
"Bowsprit," he said, in a low voice, "keep near to me; and do not forget
your pledge to give all the aid in your power to prevent, to such extent
as we can, the shedding of innocent blood."
"Mr Coe," answered Billy, earnestly and emphatically, yet in a whisper,
"I am with you, heart and hand, I am yours in life and death."
"And see, too," said Coe, in the same low tones, "that the five men of
my band, who are with us, keep near to us, and that you and they follow
me wherever I go."
"They are here, sir," whispered Billy, "just behind you and me. Every
man of them can be relied on; they are all devoted to you."
"And you and they," replied John, still in the same undertones, "may
depend upon my fulfilling my promise, should I escape with life and
freedom from the perils of this night."
Thus the thirty men of the _Falcon's_ crew detailed for the
boarding-party, stood by the guards of the brig upon that side of her
towards the ship, waiting for the moment when the upheaving and
subsidence of the waters should uplift the former and depress the
latter, that they might seize the opportunity to leap down upon the deck
of the _Duchess_.
Captain Johnson was also waiting for the same moment. He had stationed
eight men each with a cutlass in his right hand and a pistol in his
left, in a position to meet the pirates should they gain his deck. He
had so carefully balanced and trained his two guns that, when they
should be fired, the balls would come together at a short distance from
the muzzles of the cannon. By one of these guns stood Captain Johnson
himself, by the other one of his mates, upon whose coolness he could
thoroughly depend. Each of these two resolute men held a lighted match
in his hand.
By this time the sun had been half an hour below the horizon, and the
short twilight of that southern latitude was fast darkening into a night
of storm and of unusual gloom; for although there was one clear spot in
the western sky, all the rest of the face of heaven was veiled in heavy
clouds.
In his anxiety to gain as soon as possible the deck of the ship, Captain
Vance had not noted all the dispositions made on board the _Duchess_;
his attention had been given mainly to the ordering of his own men, and
to the eight men arranged for the reception of his assaulting party.
The critical moment, upon the results of which so much of vital
importance to the combatants depended, arrived. The brig rose high upon
the summit of a huge billow, while the merchant ship descended into the
valley between that and another monster wave. At that instant the
pirates sprung towards the deck of the _Duchess_, the eight men of the
latter, who had been placed to meet this assault, fired their pistols,
and Captain Johnson and his mate applied the matches to the cannon.
Three of the pirates fell upon the ship's deck, two killed and one
mortally wounded by the pistol-shots of their enemies; five made the
leap too late, of whom two were crushed between the vessels, and fell
into the sea, and three struck against the guards of the now rising
ship, and were thrown back with violence upon their own deck. Captain
Vance himself received a pistol-shot through the brain at the moment
when he was about to spring from the guards of the _Falcon_ to the deck
of the _Duchess_; he disappeared between the two vessels and sunk into
the sea.
John Coe--to avoid confronting the eight defenders of the ship--had
taken his station with Ada, Billy Bowsprit, and the rest of the small
party devoted to him, on the extreme left of the boarding-line of
pirates. The next officer on his right was Lieutenant Afton, who was
separated from him, however, by several men. At the extreme right of
the whole line had been Captain Vance; Lieutenant Seacome being left in
charge of the brig.
Thus, when young Coe, holding Ada by the hand, alighted on the deck of
the _Duchess_, he found the second-lieutenant of the _Falcon_--with a
party of five men under his immediate command--between himself and the
defenders of the ship. He saw the wretch Afton, ever intent upon
spoil--after making, with all the assaulting party to his right, a rush
against the ship's crew, which forced the latter to give back a space--
detach himself with four men from the rest of the pirates, and, crossing
the deck, hurry along the starboard side of the ship towards the
entrance to the cabin.
It had been the first intention of Coe to throw himself, with his small
force, between the contending parties, and to insist upon the pirates
retiring to the brig; or, in case of their refusal to do so, to take
sides against them in the fight. But, seeing that the odds against the
ship's crew was now not so great, Captain Johnson and his mate having
joined them, he determined, with his followers, to pursue Afton, and to
prevent such mischief as he might be bent upon.
Captain Johnson, when he saw so many of the pirate crew hastening
towards the cabin, was also anxious to follow them; but he was too hard
pressed by his enemies to allow him to do so. He hoped, moreover, that
the tenants of the cabin had had the forethought to barricade the door,
in which case the pirates might be prevented from breaking in upon Mr
Durocher and his family until he could overpower the force immediately
before him, and then, turning upon those who had gone towards the cabin,
might thus be able to overcome his enemies in detail.
The door of the cabin had been barricaded by Mr Durocher, as well as he
could do so, with the aid of his daughter and the quadroon girl, but the
fastenings scarcely withstood for one moment the violent assault of
Afton and his men.
They passed in without further opposition--the illness of Mr Durocher
preventing him from offering even a moment's resistance. An instant of
silence ensued, and then, above the noise of conflict without arose the
cries of distress from the cabin--the shrieks of women! That was the
cry most agonising to young Coe.
"Here, my brave fellows!" he shouted, "follow me, and remember your own
mothers and sisters at home!"
He dashed off down the deck, past the assailants and assailed still
struggling there, and, followed by Ada and his men, sprung into the
cabin to confront Afton and his men in their fiendish scheme. Afton,
having penetrated to the state-rooms, had seized Miss Durocher, and was
trying to drag her forth, preparatory to removing her to the brig.
"Unhand that lady, villain!" shouted Coe. "Villain yourself?" roared
Afton. "Who made you my master, I should like to know?"
Afton was a strong man, but young Coe was both stronger and more active,
and when he was aroused and inflamed by a righteous anger the pirate was
but a child in his hands. He said not another word, but releasing the
lady from the grasp of the ruffian by a sudden and dexterous exertion,
he seized the pirate with both hands and swung him with tremendous force
through the state-room doorway into the saloon. So violently did the
latter strike the floor, that he lay at once without sense or motion.
One of Afton's men, drawing a pistol, had pointed it at the head of the
infuriated rescuer; but ere he could pull the trigger, Ada, who already
had a pistol in her hand, fired, and broke his right arm, which fell
powerless to his side. He stooped to pick up the weapon which he had
dropped with the hand of his uninjured arm, but Ada drew another pistol
from her belt and presented it at his head.
"If you attempt to take up that weapon again, Joe," she said, with
firmness of purpose expressed in her tones, "you are a dead man."
The man yielded at once, and stood motionless and silent before the
pistol which she continued to hold with the muzzle towards him.
At the same time when these scenes were occurring in the state-room,
others were taking place in the saloon.
"Unhand that gentleman," said Bowsprit, to two men who held the sick Mr
Durocher prisoner.
"We are acting under the orders of the second-lieutenant," replied one
of the men.
"Point your pistols at those men," said Bowsprit, addressing those under
his command, himself presenting at them a weapon in each hand.
His orders were at once obeyed.
"We have pistols, too," gruffly said one of the men who held Mr
Durocher.
"Now," said Billy, "release your prisoner at once, or I'll warrant
you'll never disobey orders again."
At this moment the body of Afton came rushing head-foremost out of the
state-room.
Seeing the condition of their officer, the two men unhanded Mr
Durocher, and sullenly threw their weapons upon the floor.
The fourth of the men who had accompanied Afton, and who had stood at
the state-room door through all these scenes, apparently stupefied by
surprise, quietly handed his pistols and cutlass to Bowsprit.