“Wait until daylight, Herr Diedrich, and you will see how I will make the rogues skip!”
He betook himself and his picked men to the battery on the headland, and there awaited the coming of the enemy, and dawn.
Zolca, aroused from his uneasy sleep by the stir and bustle, sent over to me to know what it was about. I went to him and told him. Instantly he insisted on being taken to the beach, so that he might witness the engagement in which he could take no part.
It would have made him worse to deny him, so a litter was soon arranged and we carried him to the great Cross of De Gonneville, now once more erect. Hessel was so confident of his ability to beat off the junk, if it proved to be one, that he had not manned the other battery, therefore I was able to stay by Zolca.
It was a calm, balmy night, not a cloud to obscure the stars, not a sound save the wash of the wavelets on the beach. None could have thought at that hour of all the tragedies that beach had witnessed within the short space of a few years. I sat on the sand by the side of Zolca’s litter, and thought of all the trouble our coming seemed to have brought down on these simple, friendly people.
Zolca was not asleep, I felt his unwounded arm move, and he put his hand on my head, which was leaning against the side of the litter, as he might have done to a child. Some strange sympathy must have told him of what I was thinking, and he put his hand out as if to tell me I was not to blame.
Dawn broke at last, red in the tree-tops behind us, and the quick-growing light soon showed the look-outs on the headland that it was a junk in sight. It was a dead calm, however, and I guessed that Hessel was whistling for a wind to bring the enemy within range.
Soon after sunrise a light wind arose, and the junk, hoisting her great clumsy sail gradually approached the land. So light was the wind, and so slowly did it come, that it was nearly two hours before the junk was close to the entrance. Zolca’s excitement was intense and I confess I shared it. I had every faith in Hessel, and knew that he would choose the right moment to open fire, otherwise I would have been by his side.
At last it came, a flash of light, and a roar from the headland, followed by the sputtering volleys of musketry. The junk seemed to reel under it, and a yell and clamour arose from her that appeared to equal the report of the cannon. Hessel now fired again, and this time the clumsy vessel was almost pierced through; her masts fell, and it was evident she was sinking. The wind had freshened and the tide being on the flow, she drifted into the bay. Hessel held his fire for the reason, as he afterwards told me, of not sinking her in the channel.
The Mongols had made no resistance, they were too surprised, nor could they see their enemies. Deeper and deeper sank the doomed craft, and when well within the still waters of the bay she suddenly went down. Then commenced a ruthless massacre; the pirates swimming for their lives were shot, or if they reached the shore, stabbed. I could not have stopped it. The Quadrucos had tasted blood too often, lately, and all the savage in them was aroused.