Chapter Sixteen.
The Pirates attempt a Night Attack upon the “Foam.”
The men were busily discussing their “nip” of grog when, mechanically glancing over the black surface of the water which lay spread out on all sides of the ship, my gaze was arrested by a sudden phosphorescent flash on our starboard beam, which was now turned in the direction of the islands we had been watching so suspiciously earlier on in the night. Looking intently I caught it again, and yet again, three or four times.
The gunner at that moment approached me to report that the men were all ready to turn-to once more, upon which I directed his attention to the point at which I had noticed the mysterious appearance, and asked him if he could see anything.
Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked earnestly in the direction indicated.
“N–o, sir, I can’t say as I can,” replied he, after a good long look; “you see, sir, it’s so precious dark just now that there’s no—eh, what was that? I thought I seed something just then, sir,” as another flash appeared, this time sensibly nearer the ship than before.
“So did I,” I replied; “and it is my belief, Tompion, that what we saw is neither more nor less than the phosphorescent flash of oars in the water. If I am not mistaken there is a boat out there trying to steal down and catch us unawares. Just go to the men, please, and pass the word for them to go quietly to quarters, and see that the starboard broadside guns are loaded with grape.”
Courtenay just then emerged from the companion with a lighted cigar in his mouth, which he had helped himself to in the brief interval of rest following the floating of the schooner. The spark at the end of the weed glowed brightly in the intense darkness, and could probably be seen for a considerable distance.
“Dowse that cigar, Courtenay, quick!” I exclaimed, as I moved to his side, “and tell me if you can hear or see anything over there.”
Instinctively guessing at an alarm of some kind from the quarter I had indicated, my shipmate stepped to the opposite side of the deck, dropped his cigar over the rail, and rejoined me.
“Now then, what is it, Lascelles?” he asked; “is there anything wrong? and why are the men mustering at quarters?”
“Look over in that direction, and see if you can find an explanation,” said I.
Unconsciously imitating Tompion in the attitude he assumed, Courtenay stood intently gazing into the darkness for a full minute or more, without result. He had turned to me and was about to speak when a faint crack, like the breaking of a thole-pin, was heard, the sound being accompanied by a very distinct luminous splash of the water.
“Ha!” exclaimed Courtenay, “there is a boat over there at no great distance from us!” and at the same moment Fidd came barefooted and noiselessly to my side with the question:
“Did ye see and hear that, sir?”
“Ay, ay, Mr Fidd, I saw it. Are the starboard guns loaded?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then kindly pass along the word to the captain of each gun to watch for the next splash and then to train his gun upon it.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” was the reply; and Fidd turned away to execute his mission as I sprang upon the rail and, grasping one of the shrouds of the main rigging to steady myself, hailed in Spanish:
“Boat ahoy! who are you, and what do you want? Lay on your oars and answer instantly, or I will fire upon you.”
I waited a full minute without eliciting any response or sign of any description from the direction in which our enemies were supposed to be lurking, and then ordered a port-fire to be burnt and a musket to be fired in their direction.
A brief interval elapsed, and then the darkness was suddenly broken into by the ghastly glare of the port-fire, with which one of the men nimbly shinned up the fore-rigging in order to send the illumination as far abroad as possible, and at the same instant a musket was fired. For a moment or two nothing whatever was to be seen but our own decks, with the men standing stripped to the waist at their guns—a row of statues half marble, half ebony, as the glare lighted up one side of each figure and left the other side in blackest shadow—the spars and rigging towering weird and ghostly up into the opaque blackness above us like those of a phantom ship; whilst the water shimmered like burning brimstone under the baleful light. Then, evidently under the impression that the boat had become visible in the gleam of the port-fire—though at that instant we could see nothing—a voice was heard from out the darkness on our starboard beam exclaiming in Spanish:
“Give way with a will, my heroes! one smart dash now and we shall be alongside yet before they can load their guns.”
The dash of oars in the water instantly followed, the whereabouts of the boat being at once made manifest by the flash of the port-fire upon the wet oar-blades, and upon the foaming ripple which gathered under the bows of the boat; and by the time that half a dozen strokes had been pulled the boat herself—a very large craft, apparently, and crowded with men—became dimly visible like a faint luminous mist driving along the surface of the inky water.
“Steady now, men,” I cried. “Take your time, and aim straight. Say when you are ready.”
“All ready with the midship gun!”
“All ready aft!”
“Ready for’ard!”
The replies were uttered almost simultaneously, and I instantly gave the word “Fire!”
The three guns rang out as one, the triple flash not only illuminating vividly, for a fraction of a second, the boat against which they were discharged, but also revealing for the same brief space of time a second and similar boat a few yards in the rear of the first. Fatally sped those three terrible charges of grape. The guns had been aimed with such deadly precision, and discharged so exactly at the right moment, that the leading boat was literally torn to pieces; so utterly destroyed, indeed, that she seemed to have vanished instantly from the surface of the lagoon, leaving in her stead only a few fragments of shattered planking, and a broad patch of phosphorescent foam in the midst of which floated her late crew, a ghastly array of corpses, save where, here and there, some wretch, less fortunate than his comrades, still writhed and splashed feebly as the life reluctantly left his torn and mutilated body. The spectacle of this catastrophe, so suddenly and completely wrought, this instant destruction of some thirty or forty human beings, was absolutely appalling; and its effect was intensified by the extraordinary circumstance that not a single shriek, or groan, or outcry of any description, escaped the victims of our murderous fire. So dreadful was the sight that, for perhaps half a minute, the entire crew of the schooner, fore and aft, stood motionless and dumb, petrified with horror, staring with dilated eyeballs at the spot where the bodies, now all motionless, lay faintly defined in the last rays of the almost burnt-out port-fire.
But there was no time to be lost; another boat was lurking out there somewhere, in the impenetrable gloom; so, rallying my faculties by a powerful effort, I managed to exclaim in a tolerably steady voice:
“Load again, men, smartly! there is another boat out there somewhere, and she must be prevented from coming alongside at all costs. Light another port-fire forward, there!” as the man in the fore-rigging dropped the fag-end of the first into the water alongside and the blackness of darkness once more enshrouded us as with a pall.
There was, apparently, to be no more fighting just then, however; the crew of the remaining boat had evidently seen enough to completely damp their ardour, for the time being at least, for before the operation of reloading the guns had been completed, the splash and roll of oars in their rowlocks could be heard in fast diminishing cadence, conveying to our experienced ears the fact that our enemies were beating a precipitate retreat.
But the horrors of the night were not yet quite over, for, whilst we were busily preparing to hoist in the guns from the raft alongside and to get the ballast back into its proper place in the hold, a loud, confused, splashing sound was suddenly heard away on our starboard beam, and, on looking in that direction to ascertain what this new disturbance might portend, we saw that the water was literally alive with hundreds of sharks, distinctly visible by the phosphorescent glow which shone from their bodies, which were tearing and snapping at the floating corpses of the pirates, rending them limb from limb, and rushing off in all directions with the dismembered fragments as the monsters succeeded in securing them.
Such a sight was not calculated to inspire the men with any relish for the somewhat perilous task of going down upon the submerged raft and into the deeply-laden boats to sling the guns and ballast; but the work had to be done, and the boatswain and the gunner volunteering to go down first, we soon had the work well under weigh, finishing it satisfactorily off and bringing a toilsome night of labour to an end about two o’clock the next morning.
By daybreak all hands were once more astir, notwithstanding the arduous character of their previous day’s and night’s work; the anchor was weighed; and under short canvas, with Courtenay once more on the topgallant-yard to con us, and a leads-man in the fore-chains on each side of the ship, we cautiously felt our way to the northward and westward until, about seven bells, we managed to reach the anchorage which the feluccas had vacated on the previous day. A hurried breakfast was then scrambled through; after which the long-boat and the gig, under the command of Courtenay and the boatswain, with their crews fully armed, pulled away for the shore, to see whether they could discover anything like a dépôt, of which no sign whatever could be detected from the deck of the schooner.
They pulled inshore about a quarter of a mile, after which we suddenly lost sight of them among the mangroves which thickly fringed the shores of the island. Three or four minutes later the sound of musketry firing, at first in whole volleys and then intermittingly, floated off to us from the direction where the boats had disappeared, and very soon we saw the light wreaths of pale-blue smoke floating up and out from among the trees. The firing soon ceased; and then nothing more was heard or seen for nearly two hours, at the end of which time a thin volume of light brownish smoke rose into the sky from about the spot where we had before seen the indications of musketry firing; the smoke, rapidly increasing in volume and deepening in colour until, thickly besprinkled with sparks, it poured across the bay in one vast dense black cloud which swept right over us where we lay, half suffocating us with its pungent fumes, and almost hiding the islands from sight. Then, when the smoke-cloud had become almost intolerable, the boats were seen approaching; upon which the schooner was hove short and the canvas set in readiness for a speedy retreat from our uncomfortable berth. The moment that they came alongside the anchor was tripped, and, by the time that the boat’s crews were once more on the schooner’s decks, we had run out clear of the nuisance. The Foam was then hove to; seven singularly heavy kegs were hoisted in from the long-boat; the boats themselves next followed; and then away we went, groping our way as before, back toward the main channel from the sea. This channel was successfully traversed and the open sea reached about three bells in the afternoon watch, when I turned over the command of the schooner to Courtenay and went below to my berth, not only dead tired, but also suffering dreadfully from the wound in my head, which had not been dressed for nearly twenty-four hours, and which was certainly none the better for the excitement and exposure of the preceding night. Previous to this, though, I had been fully informed of what had transpired on shore; and which may be related in a very few words.
It appeared that the sudden evanishment of the boats from our sight was due to the fact that they had discovered and pushed into a narrow channel running to the northward and eastward between the two westernmost islands of the group; along which channel they had proceeded for about half a mile when they suddenly opened a tiny bay, on their starboard hand, from the shore of which projected a long wooden jetty of rough mangrove piles decked over with ship timber. This jetty they at once headed for, and were immediately saluted with a volley of musketry from a long black wooden building which stood close to the shore. Luckily, nobody was hit; and the same good fortune befell them when, whilst landing on the jetty, a second volley was fired at them. The tars, headed by Courtenay and the boatswain, then charged up to the building, and, without very much difficulty, burst in the door, just in time to see some twenty Spaniards effecting a hasty retreat through an opening in the opposite side of the building. Our lads at once crowded sail in chase, shouting and laughing like a parcel of schoolboys out for a holiday, and occasionally stopping to pop away at the enemy with musket or pistol as opportunity offered. The Spaniards, however, were lighter in the heels than our own men, and they possessed the further advantage of knowing the country, so they quickly hauled out of sight, nor was anything further seen of them, though Courtenay maintained the pursuit for about half an hour. The party then returned to the shed by the beach; and whilst Courtenay with three or four hands gave the place a thorough overhaul, Fidd, with the remainder of the men, turned to and broke up a very large yawl-built boat which was lying alongside the jetty, afterwards carrying her dismembered planking and timbers up to the shed, to be still more effectually destroyed with it by fire. A quantity of ship’s stores, such as rope, canvas, pitch, tar, paint, etcetera, was found, evidently showing that this was one of the many pirates’ rendezvous which were known to be in existence along this coast; but there was nothing in the shape of plunder except the seven heavy kegs before mentioned, one of which, upon being opened, proved to be filled with Spanish dollars (as did the rest, eventually), so they were promptly tumbled down to the jetty and put on board the long-boat. It had evidently been a place of some little importance; but, from Courtenay’s account, it was not to be compared for a moment with Merlani’s establishment. At last, the place having been thoroughly rummaged, a bonfire was built on the weather side of the shed, which, being well fed with tar, etcetera, soon set the entire building in a blaze, after which they retreated to the boats, firing the jetty also before shoving off. Altogether it was a very satisfactory morning’s work, since, with their limited facilities, it would be a long time before the pirates could make good the loss and damage inflicted upon them, if indeed they would have the heart to attempt it at all. The Barcos Channel being only some five hours’ sail distant from the Cristo Cays, near which we had emerged once more into open water, and as it would be quite impossible for us to traverse the intricate channel through Santa Clara Bay during the hours of darkness, Courtenay stretched off the land under easy canvas, and employed the remainder of the afternoon in getting up the two topmasts which the carpenter had reduced, in place of the spars expended on the previous day. This job was completed and the schooner made all ataunto again by sunset; at which hour the Foam was hove to with her head toward the land; and all hands, with the exception of the officer of the watch and two men on the lookout, were allowed to go below and get as much rest as possible, in order that they might not only recover from the fatigue of the previous night, but also prepare for what would probably prove an equally fatiguing day on the morrow.
On sitting down to the dinner-table that evening we were much gratified to learn from Sanderson that poor O’Flaherty was doing remarkably well; so well indeed, that the doctor had yielded a somewhat unwilling assent to a wish the lieutenant had expressed to see me after dinner. But I was strictly enjoined to make the interview as brief as possible; and to be cautious above all things not to engage in conversation of an exciting character. Accordingly, as soon as dinner was over, I knocked at the door of O’Flaherty’s state-room, and, in response to his feebly spoken “Come in,” entered. Notwithstanding what Sanderson had previously told us about his appearance, I was shocked to see how terribly loss of blood and the torture of his wound had pulled the poor fellow down. His swarthy, sunburnt features were now sallow, bloodless, and shrunken; contrasting strongly with his dark curly hair, which hung in long elf-locks over his forehead and about his face, dripping with perspiration caused partly by the excessive heat of the cabin and still more by the anguish from which he was suffering. A sheet was his only covering, his body being bare from the chest upwards, for greater convenience in dressing his wound; and his right shoulder and arm down to the elbow was closely swathed in bandages through which the blood still oozed here and there. There was a restless feverish gleam and glitter in his eyes which told all too plainly how acutely he was suffering; and there was an occasional nervous twitching of the fingers of the right hand which I did not like to see, and which he said had come on within the last half-hour. But his spirits were excellent; and his voice became stronger almost with every word he spoke as he questioned me about our doings since the moment of his being struck down. He expressed himself as highly satisfied with all that we had done, and especially so at the watchfulness which had defeated the pirates’ attempt at a night attack; but he intimated his expectation that, although he was unable to actually command the schooner, I would keep him fully acquainted with everything which might transpire, and consult him with regard to every proposed movement of an important character. This I, at the time, thought reasonable enough; but I soon had cause to regret that he had imposed any such condition upon me.
Daybreak next morning found us some eight miles off the mouth of the Barcos Channel, and in such a position that we should be dead to windward of it upon the springing up of the sea-breeze. We were, consequently, as well placed for the run down to it as heart could wish. But, on the boatswain calling me—I had remained in my berth all night—I was greatly annoyed to learn that there was a small craft of some kind, apparently a one-masted felucca, hovering about the entrance of the channel and manoeuvring in such a way as to lead to the belief that she was enacting the part of lookout. Courtenay and I had both been called at the same time; but he was the quicker of the two in his movements; and upon my reaching the deck I discovered him on the topsail-yard scrutinising the stranger through his telescope.
The craft was then becalmed, though we had a nice little breeze from about east-north-east; but on our filling upon the schooner and edging away in her direction, the felucca—for such she was—at once rigged out six sweeps of a side and headed direct for the mouth of the channel. Now this, I was afraid, indicated first, that the felucca was enacting the part of lookout; and second, that our late antagonists had effected a retreat to the Conconil lagoons, where they had probably united themselves temporarily with Merlani’s gang; and I anticipated that, if this surmise of mine should prove correct, we should have our hands more than full in the forthcoming attack. So heavy, indeed, would be the odds against us in such a case that I thought it would be more prudent to defer the attack for a day or two, merely passing through the channel and affecting to make an examination of the cays on each side of it, previous to retiring again and pursuing a course to the westward, thus throwing our adversaries off their guard; when I considered it might be possible to effect a descent upon them by way of Cardenas Bay, through which we might perhaps be able to so nearly approach them, unobserved, as to take them in a great measure by surprise. This plan, however, in consequence of the injunction O’Flaherty had laid upon me at our interview of the previous evening, I dared not put into effect without first submitting it for his approval; and I accordingly went down to his state-room to speak to him about it. To my surprise and chagrin I found him utterly opposed to it. He argued that my plan would not throw the pirates off their guard, whilst it would allow them a great deal more time in which to complete their preparations for an effective defence; moreover, he disliked the idea of our making our approaches through Cardenas Bay because of our having originally passed through it during the night, when, as he said, we had had no opportunity to take careful note of the landmarks, etcetera. I reminded him of the fact that the water in Cardenas Bay was deep enough to float the schooner everywhere about the track over which we should have to pass, and that that track was, moreover, so nearly straight that, with a good breeze, we could traverse it in an hour, thus materially lessening our chance of discovery; but it was all of no avail, he would have his own way; so I was perforce compelled—with, I must confess, somewhat serious misgivings—to return to the deck and give the necessary orders for running in through the Barcos Channel as soon as the sea-breeze should spring up.
At length, after what appeared to me an unusually long delay, a cat’s-paw reached us; and presently the true sea-breeze came creeping along the water, freshening as it came. We allowed it to reach the mouth of the channel, when the Foam bore up; and a quarter of an hour later we were rattling through the passage at the rate of eight knots. On clearing the channel and opening up the bay we discovered the felucca some four miles ahead, or about half-way across, foaming along with her enormously long tapering yard square across her deck and the sheet eased well out, running down dead before the wind, straight for the entrance of the lagoons, apparently in the hope that we would follow her and thus ground upon one of the numerous shoals which lay between her and us. But if they hoped this they were speedily disappointed, as the moment we had cleared the end of the channel, all concealment being then impossible, we hauled our wind and headed the schooner for the first of the marks which were to pilot us safely on our difficult way. Before we had completed our first reach the felucca had arrived at the entrance to the lagoons, and had disappeared. It was half an hour after noon when we reached the same spot.
Two miles further on lay the narrowest passage in the whole length of the lagoons, and here I fully expected our progress would meet with a check. Nor was I disappointed, for on reaching the spot our further progress was suddenly interrupted, and the schooner brought up all standing, by a heavy chain which had been thrown athwart the channel, just far enough beneath the surface of the water to catch our forefoot, the ends being artfully concealed among the bushes on either side.
“Down, flat on your faces on the deck, every man of you, fore and aft!” I shouted, for I guessed what would follow; and scarcely was the order obeyed when the flash of artillery blazed out from among the mangroves on either hand, and a perfect hailstorm of grape and langridge struck us, riddling our bulwarks, and tearing the foot of the mainsail and foresail to shreds, but, luckily, not hitting a soul of us; though how Courtenay and I escaped—it not being etiquette for either of us to seek the shelter of the bulwarks—heaven only knows; but we did. The guns were pointed so as to sweep the ship from stem to taffrail at about the level of the top of the bulwarks; and, had the men been standing erect, we must have lost half of them.
“Starboard your helm! hard a-starboard!” cried I to the man at the wheel, as the schooner rebounded from the chain; “let fly your starboard braces! Gigs and quarter-boats away! Mr Courtenay, have the goodness to take the gig and silence that battery on the north side of the channel; Mr Fidd, go you in the quarter-boat and do the same with the battery on the south side. Take a hammer and a bag of nails each, and spike the guns before you leave them. Flatten in, forward there, the larboard sheets, and help her head to pay round; we must go outside again and seek a passage elsewhere.”
The men, fully realising the peril of the situation in which we now found ourselves, sprang like wild-cats to execute the orders I had given; and in an incredibly short time both boats were in the water, with their crews in them, fully armed.
They were in the very act of shoving off when the sound of a sudden commotion in the cabin reached me, quickly followed by cries for help from Sanderson; and, before I had time to reach the sky-light to see what was amiss, up through the companion dashed poor O’Flaherty closely followed by the doctor, the former naked as when he was born, his hair bristling, his eyes aflame with fever, his teeth clenched, and the blood streaming from the disarranged bandages about his right shoulder. He glared round the deck for an instant, a single horrible unearthly cry escaped from between his clenched teeth, and then—before any of us had sufficiently recovered from our astonishment to lay a preventing hand upon him—with one bound he reached the rail, sprang upon it, and, steadying himself with his left hand by grasping the main-topmast back-stay, waved his bleeding right arm frantically to Courtenay, who by this time was a hundred yards away. At this moment the hidden battery on the north side of the channel again opened fire, this time with round shot. We felt a jar which told us that the schooner had been hulled; and, at the same moment, heard a sickening thud and saw poor O’Flaherty’s body, doubled-up like a pair of compasses, dashed lifeless and bloody to the deck by one of the shot, which had struck him fair in the stomach and cut him almost in two. It was a ghastly sight; but there was no time just then to inquire of Sanderson what the sudden escapade meant, or even to have the body removed, for the schooner was at that moment head to wind, and I was most anxious to get her round, which in that cramped channel was no very easy matter. We managed to box her off, however, in the right direction, when the topsail was backed, and we lay motionless on the half stagnant water waiting for the return of the boats.
We had not very long to wait. A loud, confused shouting, intermingled with a ringing British cheer from our own lads now and then, accompanied by the clash of steel and the popping of pistols, told us, whilst we were manoeuvring the schooner, that the boats’ crews had effected a landing; and about ten minutes later Courtenay’s boat reappeared, emerging from among the mangroves with another boat in tow, which, being captured from the enemy, was stove and sunk directly she was brought alongside the schooner. Fidd’s boat followed almost immediately afterwards; and I then had the gratification of learning that both batteries had been captured, the guns spiked and capsized into the mud, and the men who manned them driven off into the swamps, where they were perfectly powerless to work us further harm, for some time to come at all events, in consequence of the destruction of the boat, which constituted their only means of escape from the situation they then occupied. And this, too, without injury to a man on our side, though the pirates had suffered pretty severely.
This was eminently satisfactory. There was now nothing to prevent the removal by us of the chain which barred our passage up the lagoon; but I had a shrewd suspicion that other snares and pitfalls had been prepared for us further on, and I had made up my mind to see if these could not be evaded by passing out of the lagoons and making our way to the westward, close along the northern shore of the chain of islands which formed them. I thought it quite possible that a navigable channel for the schooner might be found somewhere between these islands, giving access to the lagoons so near their head as to be beyond the range of whatever other barriers to our upward progress might have been prepared; and, if we failed in this, I felt confident that we should at least be able to push through with our boats. As soon, therefore, as the boats had been hoisted up, we filled on the schooner and made the best of our way back again.
I judged that it would take us a full hour or more to reach the spot which I had in my mind’s eye; advantage was therefore taken of this brief period of peace and quietness to let the men get their dinners, with a glass of grog afterwards. They were thus rested, refreshed, and ready to do anything or go anywhere when, about three bells in the afternoon watch, we arrived at a spot distant something like five miles from the entrance to the lagoons, where we found a narrow but apparently deep channel trending to the southward, and promising to give access to the lagoons.
The schooner was at once hove to, and Courtenay, in the gig, with his crew fully armed, went away to take soundings and to reconnoitre. Twenty minutes later the boat returned with the gratifying intelligence that the channel was scarcely a quarter of a mile in length; that it communicated, as anticipated, with the lagoon, and that, too, so advantageously that, with due caution and by taking advantage of the cover afforded by a small island, it might be possible for the boats to approach undetected so closely to our enemies as to take them in a great measure by surprise. It was further discovered that there were three feluccas—one large three-masted craft and two small one-masters, surmised to be our recent acquaintances of the Cristo Cays—lying in the anchorage, with springs on their cables and apparently all ready for immediate action; but the schooner which we saw on our last visit was now absent, and Merlani—presumably—with her. The channel upon which we had so fortuitously chanced was found to be of ample depth throughout almost its entire length to float the Foam; but, unhappily, there was a sort of bar, with only four feet of water upon it, stretching entirely across its inner extremity; and we should thus be compelled to make the attack with the boats. This was peculiarly unfortunate, as it would necessitate the division of our forces, a certain number of hands being required to look after the schooner—and this we could ill afford to do in view of the strength of those opposed to us. There was, however, evidently no help for it; we therefore manned all three of the boats, a six-pounder being placed in the bows of the long-boat, or launch as our people had got into the way of calling her; and I decided, after considerable reflection, to personally lead the attack, leaving the schooner under weigh and with all her guns loaded with round and grape, with six hands and the quarter-master on board to take care of her. I was, heaven knows, wretchedly unfit for service of so arduous a character as that involved in a boat attack; but the consciousness that upon the result of this action depended the success or failure of the main object of the expedition, coupled with the anxiety attendant upon my responsible position, overcame for the time being the feeling of illness resulting from my wound, and created a restless excitement and eagerness for which I feared I should afterwards suffer severely, but which impelled me at all risks to be present and to take the direction of affairs. The men, encouraged by the report of the gig’s crew, tumbled into the boats with alacrity and in high spirits; Courtenay retained the command of the gig; Fidd, the boatswain, again assumed the command of the quarter-boat; and, snatching a cutlass from the arm-chest, I stepped into the launch, said a parting word or two to the quarter-master, and then gave the order to shove off; upon which away we all dashed in profound silence for the mouth of the passage.