The rest of the schooner’s company could say nothing. They could only stand and watch the hapless vessel, which the angry waves tossed about as if she had been a boy’s plaything. Like the Stranger, she was completely dismantled. The stump of her mizzenmast was standing, and there was something in her bow that looked like a jury-mast, with a little piece of canvas fluttering from it. This was probably the remnants of the storm-sail that had been hoisted to give the vessel steerageway, but it had been blown into shreds by the gale, and now the great ship was helpless. As she drifted along before the waves she would now and then disappear so suddenly when one broke over her, and remain out of sight so long, that the anxious spectators thought they had seen the last of her. But she always came up again, and nearer the threatening reefs than before. Her destruction was only a question of time, and a very few minutes’ time too, for she was too close to the rocks now to reach the opening through which the schooner had passed, even had her captain been aware of its existence, and able to get any canvas on his vessel. The boys looked on with blanched cheeks and beating hearts, and some of them turned away and went into the cabin that they might not see the terrible sight.
In striking contrast to these exhibitions of sympathy from the schooner’s company was the delight the natives on shore manifested when they discovered the doomed ship. They gathered in a body on the beach opposite the point on the reefs where the vessel seemed destined to strike, and danced, and shouted, and flourished their weapons, just as they had done when the Stranger first hove in sight. The ship and her cargo, which the waves would bring ashore as fast as the hull was broken up, would prove a rich booty to them. Perhaps, too, a few prisoners might fall into their hands, and on these the relatives and friends of those who had been killed by Frank’s shot could take ample vengeance.
“Mr. Baldwin,” said Uncle Dick, suddenly, “have the boats put into the water. I don’t know that it will be of any use,” he added, turning to Frank, “for it doesn’t look to me, from here, as though a human being could pass through those breakers alive. But a sailor will stand a world of pounding, and if one gets through with a breath in him, we must be on hand to keep him from falling into the power of those wretches on shore.”
“Are you going to send the boats out there, Uncle Dick?” exclaimed Eugene. “You mustn’t go. The natives would fill you full of arrows and spears.”
“Don’t be uneasy,” said the old sailor. “The mates will go, and Frank will see that the savages are kept out of range of the boats.”
“Will you open fire on them? So you can. I didn’t think of that.”
The schooner’s boats, which were stowed on deck, and which had fortunately been but slightly damaged by the gale, were quickly put into the water. Then Uncle Dick, having mustered the crew, told them what he wanted to do, and called for volunteers, and there was not a man who was too weary to lend a hand to the distressed strangers. Every one of them stepped forward. The best oarsmen were selected and ordered over the side, the mates took command, and the boats pulled away behind the reefs to place themselves in a position to assist any one who might survive the wreck. Their departure was announced by another shrapnel from the twenty-four pounder on the quarter-deck, which the natives on shore regarded as Uncle Dick intended they should regard it—as a hint that their presence on the beach was most undesirable. They took to their heels in hot haste the instant they saw the smoke arise from the schooner’s deck, but some of them were not quick enough in their movements to escape the danger. The shrapnel ploughed through the sand at their feet, and, exploding, scattered death on every side. Frank was amazed at the effect.
“Never mind,” said Uncle Dick, who thought by the expression he saw on the face of his young friend that he did not much like the work, “they would serve us worse than that if they had the power. They are fifty or a hundred to our one, and as we must remain here for a month at least, our safety can only be secured by teaching them a lesson now that they will not forget as long as the Stranger is in sight. Keep it up.”
And Frank did keep it up. He threw his shells at regular intervals—firing slowly so as not to heat the gun—and dropped them first in one part of the woods, and then in another, to show the natives that there was no place of safety anywhere within range of his little Dahlgren. Having found a safe passage for the boats along the beach, he turned to look at the ship once more. She was close upon the reefs. Even as he looked she was lifted on the crest of a tremendous billow and carried toward them with lightning speed. Frank turned away his head, for he could not endure the sight, and even Uncle Dick’s weather-beaten face wore an expression of alarm that no one had seen there when his own vessel was battling with the gale a short half hour before. The shock of the collision must have been fearful, and Frank, who had thus far clung to the hope that some of the crew might be saved, lost all heart now. The sea made quick work with what was left of the ship. She began to go to pieces at once, and portions of the hull, as fast as they were broken off by the waves and the friction of the rocks, were hurled through the breakers toward the beach.
“It is just dreadful, isn’t it?” said George, who had kept close at Frank’s side. “I remember that the first time I saw a ship in New Orleans, I looked at her beams and braces, and wondered how it was possible for so strong a craft to be wrecked. This one is no more than a chip in a millpond.”