Story 2—Chapter V.
Conquered, not Beaten!
The situation had assumed a new phase.
Inspirited by the proximity of the pirate craft, with their comrades on board, the Greek sailors in the rigging, abandoning their pursuit of the first mate and the lookout man—a brave fellow named Jack Bower—began to descend the ratlins rapidly, with the view of making an onslaught on the captain and the others that were in possession of the quarter-deck, Jack, however, following closely after them now without a trace of fear, resolving to aid his fellow-countrymen in making a stand, although he had given them leg-bail when he stood alone against them, as the first mate had abandoned him at the wheel the moment the Greeks rushed aft, and even now remained trembling in the mizzen-top, instead of backing up Jack, and taking the mutineers in the rear as they scrambled down the shrouds without looking behind them.
The courage of the latter, however, did not suffice to take them very far.
The foremost man had hardly descended two steps, when “crack!” went Captain Harding’s revolver; and, reeling backwards, his hands cleaving the air vainly for a hold, the Greek sailor toppled over into the sea with a splash, and sank like a stone to the bottom, dead as a herring!
Another would have followed suit, for the captain had recocked his pistol, and was in the act of taking aim, when a stern, commanding voice exclaimed, in accents that rang through the ship—
“Hold!”
Captain Harding, without lowering his weapon, looked hastily forward from whence this unexpected summons appeared to come; and there he saw a sight which might well make even a courageous man quail. The felucca had been run alongside the Muscadine forward, under cover of the mainsail, her bow right under the ship’s counter, and a crowd of fierce, bearded ruffians were pouring on board as fast as they could clamber up the side, led by a tall, athletic fellow, dressed rather better than themselves, with a crimson sash folded round his waist, who was so much in advance of his villainous crew that he was close upon the group on the quarter-deck before they were almost conscious of his presence. It was his voice, the voice and face of the man who had accosted Tom and Charley in the Turk Mohammed’s coffee-house at Beyrout, and whom they at once now recognised again, that had arrested the action of the captain—although only for an instant, as, undismayed by the numbers now opposed to him, and conscious that his little band and himself must be defeated in the long run, and meet their death in the struggle, he shifted his aim, and pointed his revolver without hesitation at the leader.
“Hold!” repeated the pirate chief again in warning accents, before the captain could fire. “Another shot, and I won’t answer for your lives!”
“And who are you, sir, who dares to attack a peaceful merchant vessel on the high seas in this fashion?” demanded Captain Harding, without faltering, and still keeping his pistol levelled at the head of the other, who faced it with the utmost sangfroid, although he could perceive that the English sailor’s blood was up and his finger trembling on the trigger.
“One who dares anything and everything, and never embarks in any enterprise unless he has weighed the consequences and can carry it through to a successful termination!” replied the desperado, with an assumption of stern dignity that was in harmony with his stalwart form and reckless air. “But, come,” he continued, sinking his tone of bravado, and speaking in the same easy, polite manner which Charley had specially noticed when he addressed Tom and himself in the khan—a manner that showed a very considerably greater amount of breeding than could have been expected from a common seaman,—“you must see that you are powerless to resist us.”
“There are six of us,” interrupted Captain Harding, “and we can at all events make a fight for it!”
“To what purpose?” retorted the other. “You are six, truly; but two of your party are boys, and one a coward who wouldn’t be of much help”—glancing as he spoke from Tom and Charley, who stood beside the captain prepared to aid him to their last breath, upward to the mizzen-top, where the craven-faced Tompkins stood, looking down too much frightened to stir.
“Well, what then?” said the captain, impatiently. “Be quick with your palaver or I’ll fire.”
“You’ll do so at your peril,” retorted the other. “Captain Harding, you are a brave man, or I wouldn’t waste so many words on you or spare your life. You are powerless to resist us, as I said before, for you are but six in number, including your boys and that cur aloft; you have three other men down in the foc’s’le, but they cannot join you. We are fifty. Show yourselves, my lads,” he cried to his followers, who instantly ranged themselves, across the Muscadine four deep, exhibiting their full strength, which was even more than he had stated.
“You see!” said the pirate chief, complacently. “Look, and count them.”
“I see that we’re outnumbered by a gang of cut-throats,” said Captain Harding, bitterly.
“Gently, my friend,” said the other, suavely. “Some of my men understand English like myself, and might not relish your compliments, although, as a man of the world, I can make excuses for you—ah—want of tact; yes, that’s the word, is it not?”
“Cease your humbugging, sir, and come to the point,” said the captain, trying to curb his anger, which he could hardly control in the face of the pirate’s cynical impertinence. Had it not been for the sake of the boys by his side he would have let drive at the scoundrel at once, and risked his fate.
“That’s just what I am about to do,” said the other coolly, not one whit put out of his even temper apparently. “You confess you are outnumbered? Good! I, on my part, do not wish for any further bloodshed, if I can effect my purpose without it. Besides which, I have conceived quite an affection for you and those young gentlemen there, whom I first had the pleasure of meeting at Beyrout. Good morning, signors,” he interposed, taking off his Greek cap and bowing politely to Tom and Charley. “It is morning, for it’s nearly one o’clock now. I hope I see you well? But to resume, captain. As I said, there’s no further necessity for our fighting that I can see. You have killed three of my men, whom I considerately placed on board your ship before she left port so as to get possession of her without any bloodshed at all, although the fates willed otherwise; and we, I believe, six of yours; so in losses we may, perhaps, have the advantage of you, although that fellow there”—pointing to the Greek sailor Tom had cut down with his cutlass—“won’t be worth much more to me, and that gives you only two more than ourselves in the casualty list. But I won’t grumble. I’m satisfied to cry quits, and call a truce to hostilities.”
“And, after that?” said the captain.—“I don’t suppose you attacked us for nothing!”
“Your remark,” said the pirate, smiling, “does credit to your good sense. I am not in the habit, strange to say, even in these heroic days, of doing anything for nothing. Am I, Calchas?” he added, turning to a ferocious-looking villain at his right hand.
The man evidently did not understand him, as he spoke still in English for the benefit of the captain’s party; but he grinned in sympathy with the smile on the pirate chief’s face—such a cruel, crafty smile as it was!
“You have got possession of the ship,” said Captain Harding; “what more do you want, if you don’t wish to murder us like the rest of my poor crew?”
“My dear sir, you certainly use very strong language; and I can’t say I like it,” said the pirate, playing carelessly with the handle of a long yataghan that was thrust through his crimson sash. “Murder is a nasty word, which should not really be mentioned in the company of gentlemen! Your men fell in fair fighting.”
“Yes, when they were taken unawares by a pack of traitors,” put in the captain hotly. The other’s cool assurance was more than he could stomach.
“Pray don’t interrupt me,” said the pirate. “It is, to say the least of it, rude. But, now to business. I have possession of your ship, you say? That is true without doubt; now, my difficulty is, how to utilise that possession; and here, Captain Harding, I shall have to claim your assistance—”
“You may claim away till doomsday,” said the captain with grim humour; “but as to my giving it, that’s quite a different matter.”
“Allow me to finish my sentence,” continued the other—“claim your assistance in return for the lives of yourself and the remainder of your crew. Else, I shall be extremely sorry, but circumstances will compel my wishing you all a speedy adieu.”
And the cold-blooded desperado drew his hand across his throat and then pointed to the water over the ship’s side, in a very suggestive way.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Captain Harding curtly.
“Nothing very alarming, or calculated to wound your honourable feelings,” replied the pirate. “I simply want you to remain in command of your vessel.”
The bluff, honest sailor stared at the other in amazement; he couldn’t make out “what he was driving at,” as he said to himself.
“In ostensible command of the ship, that is,” said the pirate, correcting his previous expression. “I, of course, shall be virtually master, but you will navigate her under my orders, and answer—likewise under my directions—any curious questions that may be put to us from passing vessels as to our destination and so on.”
“Why, you want me, John Harding, to sail under false colours, and help you to make away with the ship as I’ve sailed in, man and boy, ever since I smelt salt water, not to speak of betraying my owners and their interests. I’ll see you—a—a—shot first!”
As he spoke the captain pulled the trigger of his revolver, and would have settled all the pirate’s chances of present and future booty if he had not with a rapid movement of his quickly-drawn yataghan struck up the muzzle of the weapon, causing the bullet to expend itself in the air harmlessly, although it went uncommonly close to the head of the trembling Tompkins above, who was waiting for a peaceful arrangement of the situation before he descended.
On the shot being fired, the main body of the pirates rushed forward, and would have annihilated the captain and the two lads, had not their chief stopped them with some harsh word of command, at which they immediately fell back again.
“I bear no malice, Captain Harding,” said the pirate chief, with a magnanimous air, “and I’ll forgive your attempt on my life, especially as the bullet missed its mark. I will also, as you have such scruples of conscience, excuse you from acting still as the captain of this vessel, and promote your chief officer—I believe the gentleman is up aloft—to that post. I’ve no doubt he will prove more accommodating, particularly when I place my reasons strongly before him. But I have not done with you yet, captain. I shall want you presently below with reference to the ship’s papers and cargo. So now put down your weapons, and order your men to disarm. I will save your lives, I promise.”
“Boys, we must submit; we’re in their power, and they are too strong for us,” said Captain Harding, turning to Tom and Charley. “I don’t suppose they’ll murder us now in cold blood; we must trust their word for it—the word of a pirate,” he added aloud, with bitter scorn.
“And you can trust it,” replied the pirate chief proudly. “The word of Demetri, the Corsair of Chios, is known to be as sacred as his name is feared in the Aegean Sea.”
“By Jingo!” exclaimed the captain, looking from Tom to Charley, and back again to the pirate chief. “Demetri, the corsair! Why, that’s the very man that Mohammed told you about at Beyrout, and whom I would not believe in.”
And the honest old fellow seemed to reproach himself for not paying more heed to the boys’ story.
“The same, at your service,” said the corsair, as he had better be called now. “Now lay down your arms, and I shall treat you as prisoners on parole.”
“And you promise that we shall go free?” said Captain Harding, pleading for terms, although he felt that they were vanquished.
“Yes, when I’ve done with you. Look sharp! Time is pressing, and I cannot answer for my men much longer,” said Demetri.
So Captain Harding, Tom, and Charley, and the steward, laid on the deck the weapons with which they had hastily armed themselves when below as soon as the noise of the outbreak reached them, when they were instantly picked up by one of the Greeks, who stepped forward for the purpose by his leader’s orders.
“We are now at your mercy,” said the captain. “I don’t mind about myself, but, Corsair, or whatever you are, spare the poor boys and my remaining men.”
“Their lives are safe, I tell you,” said the other impatiently. “Have I not given my word? But call your other men down,” he added, pointing to Jack Bower, who was still half-way up the rigging, and Tompkins in the mizzen-top.
Captain Harding summoned them, and Jack Bower at once obeyed his orders; but the first mate refused to budge, saying, that as he was no longer master of the ship, he was not compelled to carry out his directions, especially if doing so jeopardised his life.
“The cowardly rascal!” exclaimed the captain, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to be angry; but Mr Tompkins was really so paralysed with terror that he had not the faintest idea of what he was saying, “I’ll soon make him obey me,” said the corsair, cocking the captain’s revolver, which he had taken from him, and pointing it at the frightened occupant of the top above his head. “If you are not on deck by the time I count five, you, first officer, or whatever you call yourself, I’ll fire, and you’ll descend to Davy Jones’s locker quicker than it will take you to come down the rigging! One—two—three—”
“Stop, sir, good gentleman, stop, and I’ll come down,” faltered out Mr Tompkins, roused from his fright more by the corsair’s action than his words, for a pointed pistol has a wonderfully persuasive way of its own; and, with hesitating feet, he slowly descended the ratlins and placed himself beside the captain, who looked at him first contemptuously, and then turned his back, muttering between his teeth—
“If I had had a man in charge of the watch, or even one of these boys, we would never have been put in this position.”
“You are wrong there,” said the corsair, “for we would have attacked you all the same.”
“Never mind,” retorted the captain bravely. “But we would not have been unprepared, and you would have had a tussle to get on board, instead of things being made easy for you.”
“Have your own way in that,” replied the other, shrugging his shoulders, as he gave some unintelligible order to his men, ten of whom slipped forward, placing themselves on either side of the captain and the two lads, and the other Englishmen, with the exception of the chief mate—two Greeks to each of them. “I’m sorry, captain,” continued the corsair, “but I am compelled to put you and your countrymen to some little inconvenience, lest you should be tempted to escape, when it would be the worse for you.”
And, at another word of command, all the hands of the whole party were securely lashed behind their backs.
“As for you,” said the corsair, speaking more harshly than he had yet done, as he turned to Tompkins, “if you dare move without my permission, you are a dead man! Stop there, and if any vessel hails you as we pass into the archipelago, mind you answer correctly as if you were still pursuing your original voyage, for we are going for a time in the same course. I shall hear you, so beware!”
And he waved his sharp yataghan before the first mate’s eyes in a way which he did not at all relish, although he took the hint as it was intended.
The corsair now gave the man whom he had sent to the helm after the parley was over, some directions as to the steering of the Muscadine, which was then entering the channel between Rhodes and Scarpanto, nearly about the very time that poor Captain Harding had expected, although under strangely different circumstances; after which, he motioned the captain to precede him down the companion, while he told the others to remain where they were on deck until he returned, enforcing his order by placing a guard over them.
“We’ll now go below, captain, and overhaul the ship’s papers, as I suggested to you just now,” said the corsair in a politely peremptory tone; and the captain, seeing no help for it, and no object to be gained by opposing the wish of his captor, obeyed the veiled order, the two descending to the cabin, where they remained some time, whether in argument or in conference of course those who were on deck could not guess, although both Tom and Charley would have bet their last sixpence that the corsair did not get much voluntary information out of their skipper.