“Well, gentlemen, what’s it to be?” said Joe, as he stood coolly wiping the blackened perspiration from his forehead.
“Keep on firing to the last,” said the doctor sternly. “Better die like men than surrender and be murdered, for after what has passed there can be no mercy here.”
“That’s right, sir,” said the man, “but there’s the young gentlemen, and we don’t any of us want to die if we can help it.”
“Why, you are not beaten, are you, Joe?” cried Rodd fiercely.
“Not a bit of it, sir, but here’s our schooner, and there’s Mr Morny’s brig. It’s no use to make an ugly face over a nasty dose. We are beaten, and nothing that we could do could keep that slaver from seeing that she’s won.”
“Go on firing, and sink her,” cried Rodd. “Look at the other one,” and he pointed to the three-master, whose decks looked as if they were awash.
“Well, sir, that’s what we have been trying to do; but she won’t sink. How so be, here goes, my lad, for another try, and— What’s the meaning of that?”
For all at once through the smoke that rose from the schooner they could see that something fresh had taken place—what, they could not make out, but it was something important, and one of the enemy’s smaller guns was fired in the other direction.
“Why, there must be help coming from down the river,” cried the doctor excitedly. “Yes, hark at that!”
For in reply to the schooner’s gun a desultory series of musket shots began to ring out, and encouraged by this and the knowledge that help must be at hand, the little English crew sent forth a cheer, dragged the long gun more and more round, and sent one of the most successful shots they had fired crash into the enemy’s stern.