“Here comes the corvette, sir!” broke in Ben, as he stood on tiptoe, holding on to the spokes of the wheel, and taking his eyes off 26 the binnacle a moment to get a clear view over the rail. “Here she comes, with her starboard tacks aboard, athwart our bow, and moving like an albatross!”
The man-of-war had for an hour or more crept well to windward, and then, wearing round, she came down close upon the wind under royals, and her three jibs and spanker as flat as boards. As she whirled on across the brig’s bow, a few cables’ length ahead, the sharp ring of the whistles was again heard, and the moment after the head-sails fluttered and shook in the wind, the sheets and blocks rattled, and with a clear order of “Main-sail haul!” the after-yards swung round like magic, the sails filled, and without losing headway the head-yards were swung, and she gathered way on the other tack. On she came, with the spray flying up into the weather leech of her fore-sail, the dark mazes of her rigging marked out in clear lines against her white canvas, and the watch noiselessly coiling up the ropes on her decks. As she pushed her sharp snout through the water, and grazed along the brig’s lee quarter, an officer on the poop gave a rapid and searching glance around, peered sharply along the brig’s deck, waved his trumpet to the mate, and resumed his rapid tramp to windward. In ten minutes after she had passed the brig’s wake nothing was seen of her save a dark, dim outline; a light halo reflected on the water from her white streak, and an occasional luminous flash of foam as it bounded away from her lean bows.
Half an hour went by. The mate was sitting on the weather rail droning out an old sea-song to himself, and the four or five men of the watch were dozing away along the bulwarks. Presently, however, Ben, the helmsman, happened to let his eyes wander away from the compass-card for a moment, as he steadied the wheel by his legs and bit a quid from his plug of niggerhead to last him to suck for the remainder of the watch, when, glancing beneath the bulging folds of the lee clew of the main-sail, he clapped both hands again on the steering spokes, and shouted,
“Mr. Mate, here’s a sail close under our lee beam!”
“Where?” said Binks. But, before he had fairly time to run over to the other side of the vessel and take a look for himself, a quick rattle of oars was heard as a boat grated against the brig’s side, and, before you could think, a swarm of fellows started up like so many shadows above the rail. In five seconds they had jumped on the deck, Ben fell like a bullock from a blow from the butt-end of a pistol, the helm was jammed hard down, the lee braces let fly, and, as the old brig gave a lurching yaw in bringing her nose to windward, the weather leeches shivered violently in the wind, and, taking flat aback, the studding-sail booms snapped short off at the irons, and, with the sails, fell slamming and thumping below.
THE PIRATES BOARDING THE BRIG.
Meanwhile the mate had barely time to spring to the companion-way 29 and sing out, “We’re boarded by pirates, Captain Blunt!” when he, too, received an ugly overhand lick from a cutlass on his skull, and went senseless and bleeding down the hatchway like a scuttle of coals.
At the first noise, however, the black Banou sprang to his feet, and, as he caught a glimpse of the fellows swarming over the side, he snatched hold of the ensign halliards where the signal lantern had been bent on, and in an instant it was dancing away up to the gaff, shrouded from view to leeward of the vessel by the spread of the spanker. In another moment the black leaped to the deck cabin and darted through the door. But in less time than it has taken to tell it, the “Martha Blunt” had changed hands.