Chapter Ten.
“Down with the Red Flag and up with the Black!”—Victory—An Old Acquaintance—Hie, for the North.
If the crew of the Arrandoon needed any stimulus to fight the pirate, beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainly was given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft, “Down with the red flag and up with the black!” and the broad, white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skull and cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations. She had rounded, too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have been visible. Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear into the hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes. Hatred and loathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear—well, in the matter of scaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory class of beings in the world.
For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board the Arrandoon, as seen from the pirate’s poop, must have considerably astonished—not to say puzzled—the officers of that ship, for in that short space of time what had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisted a funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, moved slowly away beyond reach of her guns. Not for long was she gone, however. She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back she came, black and grim, athirst for vengeance. But the pirate was no coward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancing ship, without eliciting a single shot save one.
This was the shot—the second shot—that McBain had promised Magnus. It went roaring through the air, crashed through the Maelsturm’s bulwarks midships, and smashed a boat to flinders.
Magnus Bolt, or “Green,” as he was better known, old as he was, was by far the best shot in the ship. He and Mitchell, the mate, a man of eagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired every gun in the fight that followed the second shot. If it were a starboard broadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to take deadly aim and fire it.
“Remember, gunners,” cried McBain, “we’ve got to take that ship, and not to sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?”
On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and when within two hundred yards of each other, the Maelsturm heading north and west, the Arrandoon going full speed south and east, the pirate delivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firing with her bow guns. She could get no nearer the wind, however. To go on the other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.
“Hard a port! Ease her a little! Steady as you go!” were the orders from the quarter-deck of the Arrandoon. “Small-arm men to fire wherever head or hand is visible.”
Now the Arrandoon delivers her broadside as she again comes parallel with the Maelsturm, whose sails are all a-shiver. This just by way of confusing her a little. There is worse to come, for the order is now given to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister. Away steams the Arrandoon, and round goes the Maelsturm. Ah! well he knows what the foe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can. But see! the Arrandoon is round again; there will be no escaping her this time. Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicit a reply.
“Sta’board!” cries the captain; “starboard?” he signals, with his calm, uplifted arm. “Starboard still! steady now!” Then, in a voice of thunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spite of all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to her stem, “Stand to your guns—Fire!”
When the Arrandoon forged ahead clear of the smoke, it was evident from the confusion on board the Maelsturm, and the dishevelment of running and standing rigging, that the havoc on her decks must have been terrible. She was not beaten, though, as a gun from her broadside soon told.
“We’ll end this,” said the captain to Rory, by his side, who had constituted himself clerk, and was coolly taking notes in the very thick of the fight, while shot roared through the ship’s rigging and sides, men fell on all hands, and splinters filled the air. “We’ll end it in the good old fashion, Rory. Stand by to grapple with ice-anchors! Prepare to board!” Now Allan and Ralph, who had been below assisting the surgeon, heard that word of command, and, just as the sides of the two ships had grated together, after firing their last broadsides, they were both, sword in hand, by their captain’s side.
McBain and our heroes were the very first to leap on to the blood-slippery decks of the pirate. The crew of that doomed ship fought for a time like furies—for a time, but only for a time. In less than five minutes every pirate on board was either disarmed or driven below, and the Maelsturm was the prize of the gallant Arrandoon, and her captain himself lay bound on the quarter-deck.
But the commander of this pirate ship was the very last man on board of her to yield. Even when the battle was virtually ended, as fiercely as a lion at bay he fought on his own quarter-deck, McBain himself being his antagonist. The latter could have shot him down had he been so minded, but he was not the man to take a mean advantage of a foe. The pirate was taller than McBain, but not so well built nor so muscular. They were thus pretty well matched, and as they fought, round and round the quarter-deck, a more beautiful display of swordsmanship was perhaps never witnessed. Once the pirate tripped and fell, McBain lowered his weapon until he had regained his feet, then swords clashed again and sparks flew. But see, the captain of the Arrandoon clasps his claymore double-handed; he uses it hatchet fashion almost. He looks in his brawny might as if he could fell trees. The pirate cannot withstand the shock of the terrible onslaught, but he makes up in agility what he lacks in strength. He is borne backward and backward round the companion, McBain “showering his blows like wintry rain;” and now at last victory is his, the pirate’s sword flies into flinders, our captain drops his claymore and springs empty-handed on his adversary, and next moment dashes him to the deck, where he lies stunned and bleeding, and before he can recover consciousness he is bound and helpless.
Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd around their captain, and shake his willing hand.
“Heaven,” says McBain, “has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but there is now much to be done. Let us buckle to it without a moment’s delay. The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate’s, the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well, we’ll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik.”
“And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl’s father?” exclaimed Rory.
“Ay, ay, boy Rory,” said McBain; “he is doubtless on the vessel. We will proceed at once to search for him.”
If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread itself over his features. All eyes were instantly turned towards him. He had raised himself to the sitting position.
“Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled, while, manacled though his wrists were, he drew his right forefinger rapidly across his throat, uttering, as he did so, these words, “Your padre; ha! ha! dead—dead—dead.”
His listeners were horrified. What McBain’s reply would have been none can say. It was not needed, for at that very moment, ere the exultant grin had vanished from the wretch’s face, there sprang on deck from the companion a figure, tall and gaunt, clad from top to toe in skins. He knelt on the deck in front of the pirate, the better to confront him.
With forefinger raised, “he held him with his glittering eye,” while he addressed him as follows:
“Look here, Mister Pirate, I was going to use strong language, but I won’t, though I guess and calculate mild words are wasted on sich as you. The parson ain’t dead; ne’er a hair on his reverend head. Ye thought I’d scupper him, didn’t you, soon’s the ship was taken? Ye thought this child was your slave, didn’t ye? Ha! ha! though, he has rounded on ye at last, and if that bit of black rag weren’t enough to hang you and your wretched crew of cutthroats, here in front o’ ye kneels one witness o’ your dirty deeds, and the other will be on deck in a minute in the person o’ the parson you thought dead. How d’ye like it, eh?” and the speaker once more stood erect, and confronted our heroes.
“Seth!” they ejaculated, in one voice.
“Seth! by all that is marvellous!” said McBain, clutching the old man by the right hand, while Rory seized his left, and Allan and Ralph got hold of an arm each.
“Ah! gentlemen,” said honest Seth—and there was positively a tear in his eye as he spoke—“it’s on occasions like these that one wishes he had four hands,—a hand for every friend. Yes, I reckon it is Seth himself, and nary a one else. You may well say wonders will never cease. You may well ask me how on earth I came here. It war Providence, gentlemen, and nuthin’ else, that I knows on. It war Providence sent that cut-throat skipper to the land where you left me on the Snowbird, though I didn’t think so at the time, when they burned and pillaged my hut and killed poor old Plunkett, nor when they carried me a prisoner on board the Maelsturm. They meant to scupper old Seth. They did talk o’ bilin’ his old bones in whale oil, but they soon found out he could heal a hole in a hide as well as make one, and so, gentlemen, I’ve been surgeon-in-chief to this craft for nine months and over. Yes, it war Providence and nuthin’ else, and I knew it war as soon as I saw your ship heave in sight, the day they guessed they’d wreck ye. The parson’s daughter, poor little Dunette, war on board then. I sent her to save ye; and when I heard your voice, Captain McBain, on the reef, I felt sure it war Providence then, and I kind o’ prayed in my rough way that He might spare ye. Shake hands, gentlemen, again. Bother these old eyes o’ mine; they will keep watering.”
And Seth drew his sleeve rapidly across his face as he spoke.
Rory was a proud—boy, ahem! well, man, then, if you will have it so, when that same afternoon he was put on board the Maelsturm, as captain of her, with a picked crew from the Arrandoon, and with orders to make all sail for Reikjavik. McBain’s last words to him were these,—
“Keep your weather eye lifting, Captain Roderick Elphinston. Clap two sentries on those ruffianly prisoners of yours, and let your men sleep with their cutlasses by their sides and their revolvers under their heads.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” said Rory.
Rory allowed his crew to sleep, but he himself paced the deck all the livelong night. Occasionally he could see the lights of the Arrandoon far on ahead; but towards morning the weather got thick and somewhat squally, and at daylight the Maelsturm seemed alone on the ocean. Sail was taken in, but the ship kept her course, and just in the even-glome Rory ran into the Bay of Reikjavik, and dropped anchor, and shortly after a boat came off from the Arrandoon with both Allan and Ralph in it, to congratulate the boy-captain on the success of his, first voyage as skipper-commandant.
Next day both the pirate vessel and her captor were show-ships for the people—all the élite and beauty of Reikjavik crowded off from the shore in dozens to see them. The dilapidated condition of the Maelsturm, her broken bulwarks, rent rigging, and shivered spars, showed how fierce the fight had been. Nor were evidences of the struggle wanting on board the Arrandoon, albeit the men had been hard at work all the day making good repairs.
The dead were buried at sea; the wounded were mostly sent on shore. Five poor fellows belonging to McBain’s ship would never fight again, and many more were placed for a time hors de combat.
As to the prisoners, they were transferred to a French ship that lay at Reikjavik, and that in the course of a week sailed with them for Denmark. Seth and the officers of the Arrandoon made and signed depositions; and in addition to this, as evidence against the pirates, the old clergyman and his daughter Dunette, now joyfully reunited, went along with the Frenchman, while, with a crew from shore, the Maelsturm left some days after. The black flag had never been lowered, nor was it until the day the pirate captain and many of his crew expiated their long list of crimes on the scaffold at the Holms of Copenhagen.
Poor Dunette, the tears fell unheeded from her sad blue eyes as she bade farewell to our heroes on the deck of the Arrandoon. She did not say good-bye to the surgeon, however—at least not there. He had begged for a boat, and accompanied her on board the vessel in which she was to sail. Have they a secret, we wonder? Is it possible that our quiet surgeon has won the heart of this beautiful fair-haired Danish maiden? These are questions we must not seek answer to now, but time may tell.
Not until the pirate ship had left the bay, and the wounded were so far convalescent as to be brought once more on board, did the old peace and quiet settle down upon the good ship Arrandoon. And now once more all was bustle and stir; in a day or two they would start for the far north, and bid adieu to civilisation—a long but not, they hoped, a last adieu.
The very evening before they sailed, a farewell party was given on board the Arrandoon. The decks were tented over with canvas lined with flags, and the whole scene was gay and festive in the extreme. Poetic Rory could not have believed that there was so much female youth and loveliness in this primitive little town of Reikjavik. No wonder that day was dawning in the east ere the last boat of laughing and merry guests left for the shore.
Many and many a time afterwards, when surrounded by dangers innumerable, when beset in ice, when engulfed in darkness and storm, in the mysterious regions of the Pole, did they look back with pleasure to that last happy night spent in the bay of Reikjavik.
But see, it is twelve o’clock by the sun. Flags are floating gaily on the fort, on the little church tower, and on every eminence in or near the town, and the beach and snow-clad rocks are lined with an excited crowd. Hands and handkerchiefs are waved, and with the farewell cheers the far-off hills resound. Then our brave fellows man the rigging and waft them back cheer for cheer, as the noble vessel cleaves the waters of the bay, and stands away for the Northern Ocean.