They saw a boat coming a long way off, with her men rowing furiously, but by that time there were all manner of sounds on the shore whence the boat had launched forth. Shouts and yells in English and Spanish, with ever the booming of guns, echoed across the harbour. Beacons flamed up and for a while danced fitfully, only to die away when those who tended the fires left them unwatched and with flaming brands joined in the cry; and in the wake of the furiously rowing boat came others that strove with a great thresh of oars to overhaul the fugitive.
The activity and tumult were very small and faint under the bright stars in that harbour girdled about with palms. Though the rugged slopes of wild mountains, rising like escarpments above the harbour, by day completely dwarfed it, yet the stars made the mountains seem by night mere pigmy hills, and even the many sounds, which a great echoing redoubled, seemed smaller and fainter in the presence of the vast spaces that such a night suggests.
Although the men in the foremost boat rowed out of time and clumsily, their fierce efforts kept them their lead, and they were still far in advance of their pursuers when they tossed up their oars and crouched panting on the thwarts in the shadow of the ship.
"Ropes, you fools!" the Old One called. "Cast us ropes! Ropes! Bind fast this bird we've caught and trice him up! Now, my hearts, swing him aloft—there he swings and up he goes! Well done! I'll keep him though I risk my neck in doing it. Make fast a rope at bow and at stern! Good! Every man for himself! Up, thou! And thou! Up go we all! Come, tally on and hoist the boat on board! And the men are aloft? Well done, Jacob! Haul up the anchor and let fall the courses!"
It was plain from their manner that those who came swarming up the sides had a story to tell, but there was little time then for story-telling. The pursuing boats lifted their oars and swung at a distance with the tide, since it was plain for all to see that they were too late to overhaul the fugitives. Although on board the stranger ship there were signs and sounds of warlike activity, she too refrained from aggression; and the Old One, having no mind to traffic with them further, paced the deck with a rumble of oaths and drove the men alow and aloft to make sail and be gone.
It was "Haul, you swine!"
And "Heave, you drunken dogs!"
And "Slacken off the weather braces! Leap for your lives!"
And "Haul, there, haul! A touch of the rope's end, boatswain, to stir their spirits!"
And "Come, clear the main topsail! Up aloft to the topsail yard, young men! A knife, you dog, a knife! Slash the gaskets clear! A touch of the helm, there! Harder! Harder! There she holds! Steady!"