56.—A TALE OF THE SEA. a-low' [-lō], in the lower part. beam, side. PART III. blanched, made pale with fear. lee'ward [loo'ard], that part toward quer'u-lous, whining, complaining. rel'ic, what remains. scup'pers, channels cut to carry off water. step'ping, setting the foot of. tac'tics, mode of acting, device. trice, a short time. match locks, muskets fired by light wake, immediately after. held in the hand. : yaw'ing, changing the course. 1. THE wind was west-north-west; he was standing north one pirate lay on his lee beam stopping a leak between wind and water, and hacking the deck clear of his broken masts and yards. The other, fresh and thirsting for the easy prey, came up from the north-east, to weather on him and hang on his quarter, piratefashion. When they were distant about a cable's length, the fresh pirate, to meet the ship's change of tactics, changed his own, put his helm up a little, and gave the ship a broadside. 2. Dodd, instead of replying, as was expected, took advantage of the smoke, and put his ship before the wind. By this unexpected stroke, the vessels ran swiftly at right angles toward one point, and the pirate saw himself menaced with two serious perils: a collision, which might send him to the bottom of the sea in a minute, or a broadside delivered at pistol-shot distance, and with no possibility of his making a return. must either put his helm up or down. He 3. He chose the bolder course, put his helm hard-a-lee, and stood ready to give broadside for broadside. But ere he could bring his lee guns to bear, he must offer his bow for one moment to the ship's broadside; and, in that moment, which Dodd had provided for, Monk and his mates raked him fore and aft at short distance with all the five guns that were clear on that side. The carronades followed, and mowed him slantwise with grape and canister. Loud shrieks and groans were heard from the schooner; the smoke cleared; the pirate's mainsail hung on deck, his jib-boom was cut off like a carrot, and the sail struggling; his foresail hung in ribbons; dead and wounded lay still or writhing on his deck, and his lee scuppers ran blood into the sea. 4. The ship rushed down the wind, leaving the schooner staggered, and all abroad. But not for long; the pirate fired his broadside after all, at the now flying Agra, split one of the carronades in two, and killed a Lascar, and made a hole in the foresail. This done, he hoisted his mainsail again in a trice, sent his wounded below, flung his dead overboard, and came after the flying ship, yawing and firing his bow-chasers. The ship was silent. She had no shot to throw away. Not only did she take these blows like a coward, but all signs of life disappeared on her, except two men at the wheel, and the captain on the main gangway. 5. Dodd had ordered the crew out of the rigging, armed them with cutlasses, and laid them flat on the forecastle. The great, patient ship ran environed by her foes, one destroyer right in her course, another in her wake, following her with yells of vengeance, and pounding away at her but no reply. Suddenly the yells of the pirates on both sides ceased, and there was a moment of dead silence on the sea. 6. Yet nothing fresh had happened. Yes, this had happened: the pirates to windward and the pirates to leeward of the Agra had found out, at one and the same moment, that the merchant captain they had lashed and bullied and tortured was a patient but tremendous man. It was not only to rake the fresh schooner that he had put his ship before the wind, but also by a double, daring master-stroke, to hurl his monster ship bodily on the pirate's crippled consort. Without a foresail, the latter could never get out of his way. Her crew had stopped the leak, had cut away and unshipped the broken foremast, and were stepping a new one, when they saw the huge ship bearing down in full sail. Nothing easier than to slip out of her way, could they get the foresail to draw; but the time was short, the deadly intention manifest, the coming destruction swift. 7. After that solemn silence came a storm of cries and curses, as their seamen went to work to fit the yard and raise the sail; while their fighting men seized their matchlocks and trained the guns. well commanded by a heroic, able villain. They were consort thundered; but the Agra's response was a dead silence more awful than broadsides. For then was seen with what majesty the enduring Anglo-Saxon fights. 8. One of that indomitable race on the gangway, one at the foremast, two at the wheel, steered the great ship down on a hundred matchlocks and a grinning broadside, just as they would have steered her into a British harbor. "Starboard!" said Dodd, in a deep, calm voice, with a motion of his hand. 66 Starboard it is." 9. The pirate wriggled ahead a little. The man forward made a silent signal to Dodd. "Port!" said Dodd, quietly. "Port it is." But at this critical moment the pirate astern sent a mischievous shot, and knocked one of the men to atoms at the helm. 10. Dodd waved his hand without a word; another man rose from the deck, and took his place in silence, laying his unshaking hand on the wheel stained with the warm blood of him whose post he took. The high ship was now scarce sixty yards distant; she seemed to know: she reared her lofty figure-head with great awful shoots into the air. But now the panting pirates got their new foresail hoisted with a joyful shout; it drew, the schooner gathered way, and their furious consort, close on the Agra's heels, just then scourged her deck with grape. "Port!" said Dodd, calmly. "Port it is." 11. The giant prow darted at the escaping pirate. That acre of coming canvas took the wind out of the swift schooner's foresail; it flapped: oh, then she was doomed! That awful moment parted the races on board her. The Papuans and Zulus, their black faces livid and blue with horror, leaped yelling into the sea, or crouched and whimpered. The yellow Malays and brown Portuguese, though blanched to one color now, turned on death like dying panthers, fired two cannon. slap into the ship's bows, and snapped their muskets and matchlocks at their solitary executioner on the ship's gangway. CRASH! the Agra's cut-water, in thick smoke, beat in the schooner's broadside. 12. Down went her masts to leeward, like fishing-rods whipping the water; there was a horrible, shrieking yell; wild forms leaped off on the Agra, and were hacked to pieces almost ere they reached the deck; a surge, a chasm in the sea, filled with an instant rush of ingulfing waves, a long, awful, grating, grinding noise, never to be forgotten in this world, all along under the ship's keel - and the fearful majestic monster passed on over the blank she had made, with a pale crew standing silent and awe-struck on her deck; a cluster of wild heads and staring eyeballs bobbing like corks in her foaming wake, sole relic of the blottedout destroyer; and a wounded man staggering on the gangway with hands uplifted and staring eyes. 13. Shot in two places - the head and the breast. With a loud cry of pity and dismay, Sharpe, Fullalove, and others rushed to catch him; but, ere they got near, the captain of the triumphant ship fell down on his hands and knees, his head sunk over the gangway, and his blood ran fast and pattered in the midst of them, on the deck he had defended so bravely. 14. They got to their wounded leader, and raised him; he revived a little; and, the moment he caught sight of Mr. Sharpe, he clutched him, and cried, "Stunsels!" |