Coming up, however, I found that another plan had been adopted. Gates and Tommy were busily unlacing the canvas cover from our brass cannon. While it was only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket. Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing somewhere near twenty drams of black powder. As I approached, Tommy was excitedly arguing with Gates who, this time, seemed to demur.
"It's not of the Orchid I'm thinking, sir," he turned appealingly to me, "but ourselves! Miss Nancy—as Mr. Thomas calls this young howitzer, here,—won't stand much fooling. She warn't built for it, and if we go pressing her too hard she'll bust a stay—which is the same, sir, as sending harf of us to the sick-bay!"
"What I want to do," Tommy explained, "is load her up with sinkers and truck like that, and touch her off right! Just a blank won't tell those devils anything, but if we pepper 'em with a hat full of old junk they'll haul-to in a jiffy!"
"Surest thing in the world," I cried. "Suppose she does bust a stay, Gates! We can huddle in the cockpit and fire her with a long lanyard—then let her bust!"
"That's easy, sir," he still remonstrated, "but suppose Miss Sylvia's looking out a porthole and stops one of the sinkers!"
The thought of it made me shiver. Tommy, however, his enthusiasm undampened, acquiesced at once, saying:
"Righto, Gates! Blank it is! Cartridge, Bilkins! I'm ready—say when!"
"Wait! Let's get a bit closer, sir," Gates urged.
Several minutes passed. We were only four hundred yards from the Orchid now and cutting down the space. She stood off our starboard quarter and, although a great deal more obscure in the gathering dusk, her cabin lights came on changing the portholes to a line of golden disks. Then another solitary light appeared, being carried aft by a sailor who fastened it to the taffrail. It was the stern lantern being swung out for the night, and I could not help smiling at this delightful display of audacity, deliberately to put up that tell-tale beacon, right in our faces, as it were.
"It's a good bluff," Gates chuckled, "but they don't intend leaving it there for long, sir. I'd say we'd better fire now, Mr. Thomas, and when they stop we'll have a little chat with 'em."