"English! Oh non, monsieur. You are from the little two-mast. It is
not you. It is some enemy of the King whose sheep is in the harbour,
and great dispatches have come to the Governor that she is to be seized.
Ah, there again, monsieur! Anozzer gun from the fort."
It was plain enough to hear, for the windows of the big badly-lit room
into which the man had conducted them clattered in their frames, while
the dull, heavy report was preceded by a vivid flash as of lightning.
"Ha, ha! You see. The sheep will not get away, for at the forts they
are alert and will sink her if she try."
"Oh, but no vessel could try to put out in a storm like this, Rodd,"
said Uncle Paul.
"No, sare," continued the waiter excitedly; "the boats will go out with
the soldiers and take the sheep."
"She is a man-of-war, I suppose?"
"Yes, sare. Not very big, but an enemy; but if she fight they will
shoot from all the forts and sink her."
"But how do you know all this?" said Rodd.
"Many soldiers, horsemen, came galloping up to bring dispatches to the
Governor. There, sare; you will look from the window," continued the
man, using a clean serviette that he took from under his arm to rub the
steamy window-panes, for the cold blast of the storm had caused the warm
air inside to blur the glass with a thick deposit of vapour. "There,
sare," continued the man; "zat is ze sheep."
"Oh, it's too thick to see for the rain."
"Yes, sare; but you see out zare in ze arbour ze two lights."
"Nonsense man!" cried Uncle Paul, half angrily. "That is the English
schooner--ours."
"Oh, non, non, non, monsieur! Away to ze _gauche_--ze left hand. Ze
sheep with two high, tall mast, that we all see here when she come in ze
storm yesterday. We all here with ze officer of ze regiment see you
come in through ze storm, and ze enemy sheep, a stranger, come after,
and ze officer say she will run you down and sink you in ze harbour!"
"Oh, that one!" cried Rodd excitedly.
"Ah, I see, monsieur knows. You see her lights swing in the wind--two;"
and the man held up a couple of fingers.
"Yes, I see where you mean," cried Rodd; "but she has only one light."
"Ah, ha! Monsieur is right. Zare is only one. Ze vind storm has blow
out ze uzzer. Look, now zare is no light at all. Ze sheep put im out."
The violence of the rain was now abating, but the wind beat against and
shook the window-panes and shrieked as it rushed by. It was evening,
and a few minutes before it had been dark as night, but with the
cessation of the rain the heavy forms and light rigging of the many
vessels gradually became more and more visible, while fresh lights began
to come into view, but in every case not moving and swinging about like
those in the rigging of the safely moored ships, but gliding about from
various directions as if they were in the sterns of boats that had put
off from the harbour side.
"Messieurs see?" said the waiter excitedly. "Two boats come now from
the fort on ze uzzer side. Look, look! Ze lights shine on ze soldiers'
bayonet. They go to take ze sheep."
As the man was speaking the brig that had previously taken up so much of
Rodd's attention stood out more clearly. Her riding lights were indeed
gone, but there was a peculiar misty look forward, and it was now Rodd's
turn to speak excitedly about what he saw.
"Why, uncle," he cried, "she's moving! They've slipped their cable and
hoisted the jib!"
"Nonsense, boy! Not in a storm like this."
"I don't care, uncle; she has. Look; you can see her gliding along."
"Impossible!"
"It isn't, uncle. Look, you can see them plainly now; two boats full of
men, and they are rowing hard, but getting no nearer to the brig. Here,
I want to see; let's get right down to the harbour."
"What, to get wet again?" cried Uncle Paul.
"It doesn't rain now a drop. There's nothing but wind; and look, look;
the people are running down now in crowds, and there goes a company of
soldiers at the double. Oh, there's going to be something very
exciting, uncle, and we must see."
"But the dinner, boy, the dinner! What is this to us?"
"Dinner, uncle!" cried the lad indignantly. "Who's going to stop for
dinner when there are boats out yonder full of men going to board and
take a ship?"
"Humph! Well," grunted Uncle Paul, "I suppose it would be rather
exciting, and we shall be able to see; but I don't know, though.
There'll be firing, and who knows which way the bullets will fly?"
"Oh, they; won't hit us, uncle. Come on."
Uncle Paul was rapidly growing as excited as his nephew, while the
waiter, if it were possible, was as full of eagerness as both together,
and forgetting all his duties and the dinner that he had ordered to be
prepared, he cried--
"Ze rain is ovare; you come vith me. I take you out ze back way and
down ze little rue which take us to the quay."
That was enough for Rodd, and the next minute they were following the
waiter down the big staircase through the great kitchen once more, which
was now quite deserted, and out into a walled yard to a back gateway,
beyond which, mingling with the roaring of the wind, they could hear the
trampling of many feet.
"Zis way; zis way!" the bare-headed waiter kept crying, as he put his
serviette to quite a new use, battling with the wind as he folded it
diagonally and then turned it into a cover for his head by tying the
corners under his chin.
"Here, I say," cried Rodd, as the man kept on at a trot; "I want to get
to the harbour."
"_Oui_, _oui_; zis way!" panted their guide, who nearly put the visitors
out of patience by turning off two or three times at right angles and
apparently taking them quite away from where they wished to go. "Zis
way! Zis way!" he kept on crying, till at last the trio were alone,
others who had been hurrying onward having taken different directions.
Bang went another gun from the fort, a report which seemed to be sent
back instantly from the harbour walls, apparently close at hand.
"Yes, zis way; zis way!" shouted the man. "I show you before zey sink
ze sheep."
And now he suddenly turned into a narrow alley formed by two towering
warehouses so close together that there was not room for two people to
walk comfortably abreast; but "Zis way, zis way," shouted the guide,
"and you shall be zere upon ze field--_sur le champ, sur le champ_. Ah
ha!" he cried directly after, as he suddenly issued from out of the
darkness of the alley into the comparative light of a narrow wharf
encumbered with casks, just beyond which was the dripping stone edge of
the great harbour, and below them boats, barges, and lighters swinging
from the great rusty iron rings and mooring posts of the quay.
"Vat you say to dat?" cried the waiter, turning round to face his
companions, beginning loudly and ending in a choking whisper, for he had
met a gust of wind face to face which stopped him for the moment from
taking his breath and forced him to turn his back and make a snatch at
the corner of one of the warehouses. "Faith of a good man!" he panted.
"The vind blow me inside out! Aha! What did I say?"
"Capital!" panted Rodd, almost as breathlessly as the waiter, at whom
upon any other occasion he would have burst out into a roar of laughter,
so grotesque was his appearance with the white napkin tied under his
chin. "Oh, this is a splendid place!"
"Here, you look out, Pickle," cried Uncle Paul. "Lay hold of something,
or we shall be blown right off."
"All right, uncle. Why, if one of those gusts sent us into the harbour
we should be drowned."
"Come a little farther this way, then, and if the wind is too much for
us, why we shall only go down into this barge."
At that moment, as they looked across and downward towards the mouth of
the harbour, there were the flashes of bright light to illumine the
gloom of the evening, and the reports of a ragged volley of musketry
coming from one of the two boats which they could now make out being
rowed hard after the brig, as it glided rapidly along in the direction
where the watchers now stood.
Then for a short space it passed out of sight behind a group of four
vessels which were safely moored. Then it was out again, and as the
lookers-on excitedly watched, they made out dimly that the vessel
answered her helm readily and was gliding round in a tack for the other
side of the harbour, while the two boats in pursuit altered their
direction, the men rowing with all their might, as if to cut the brig
off during her next tack.
There was another ragged volley, this time from the second boat; but if
they were firing to bring down the steersman, it was in vain, for the
brig sailed swiftly on, gaining a little way, as she made for the mouth
of the harbour.
This was far distant yet, and her chances of reaching it even in the
shelter of the harbour, with such a gale blowing, were almost nil.
"She'll do it, though, uncle," shouted Rodd, with his lips close to
Uncle Paul's ear.
"Yes, my boy, I expect she will," was the reply; "but they've got some
daring people on board, and I shouldn't like to be the man at the
wheel."
"Ah, why don't they shoot? Why don't they shoot?" cried the waiter.
"She is an enemy, and--"
The rest of his speech was unheard, for another flash cut the darkness,
followed by the thud of a big gun, the shot coming as it were instantly
upon the waiter's question; but it had no effect upon the brig, which
came nearer and nearer to the pier-like wharves of the harbour, glided
round again with the two stay-sails rilling upon the other tack, and
then went off once more.
"She'll get away, uncle," cried Rodd excitedly, "and I don't know what
they are, but one can't help admiring such a brave deed."
There was another report, this time from quite another direction.
"That must be from the fort up behind the town, Rodd," cried Uncle Paul.
"It's too thick to see any splash, but they must be in earnest now, and
will not be firing blank charges. It looks as if they mean to sink her
if she doesn't stop."
"They've got to hit her first, uncle," cried Rodd excitedly. "Oh, I
can't help it, uncle," he continued, with his lips close to his uncle's
ear so that the waiter should not catch his words, "but I do hope they
won't."
"Well, my boy, I can't help feeling the same, though she's neither enemy
nor friend of ours, and we don't know what it all means; for I don't
suppose," he said, with a half-laugh, "that she has got Napoleon
Bonaparte on board."
Uncle Paul had not taken his nephew's precaution, and as a heavy gust
was just dying out, the excited waiter caught a part of his speech.
"Ha, ha!" he cried. "You sink so? You say le Petit Caporal is on
board?"
"No, no," cried Uncle Paul; "I didn't say so."
"No, sare; you think so, and zat is it. He has escape himself from ze
place where you English shot him up safe, and he come in zat sheep to
burn down ze town. But ah-h-h, again they will sink him. Faith of a
man, no!" he cried angrily, for there was a shot from another battery,
this time nearer the harbour mouth. "They cannot shoot straight."
For onward glided the brig, making tack after tack, and zigzagging her
way through the narrow entrance of the harbour, at times partly
sheltered by the great pier to windward, then as she glided farther out
careening over in spite of the small amount of reefed sail she carried,
but all the while so well under control that she kept on gaining and
leaving the two boats farther and farther behind.
"Oh, if it were only lighter!" cried Rodd, stamping his foot with
vexation. "Why, she'll soon be out of sight."
"Before she gets much farther," said Uncle Paul gravely, "she'll be
getting within the light cast by one or other of the harbour lights, and
that will be one of her critical times."
"Why critical, uncle?" cried the boy earnestly. "Because the men in the
fort will have a better chance of hitting her, I should say."
"Oh, I hope they won't," said Rodd beneath his breath. "Why, it would
be horrible, uncle," he half whispered, with his lips close to his
uncle's face. "She must have a brave captain to dare all this."
"A very brave captain," said Uncle Paul earnestly. "But you think
she'll get away, uncle?"
"No, Rodney," said the doctor, laying his hand with a firm grip upon his
nephew's shoulder. "She may pass through the harbour mouth without
being hit by the gunners, for it would require a clever marksman to hit
so swiftly moving an object, rising and falling as the brig does now
that she is getting into the disturbed water near the mouth."
"But suppose she passes through untouched, uncle? What then?"
"What then, boy? She will be out of the shelter given by the end of the
jetty. It's too dim now to see, but once or twice I had just a glimpse
of the waves washing over the harbour light, and there must be a
terrific sea out there. Why, you can hear it plainly even here."
"No, uncle; that's the wind."
"And waves, my boy. Why, trying to sail out there in the teeth of such
a gale as this, it will be almost impossible for her to escape. It
seems to me to be an act of madness to attempt such an escapade, and
cleverly as the brig is handled I think it is doubtful whether she will
ever clear the mouth. But if she does she will catch the full force of
the storm and--"
"And what, uncle?"
"Be carried away yonder to the east somewhere and cast ashore."
"Oh-h!" sighed Rodd; and it was almost a groan.