It was evident that, whatever might be the character of the stranger, those aboard her were fully as wide awake as ourselves, for no sooner did we start to make sail than she did the same, with a celerity, too, that would not have disgraced a man-o’-war. Within five minutes of my having given the order to make sail, both craft were thrashing hard to windward, under all plain sail to their royals. And then we were not long in discovering that, fast as was the Francesca, the stranger appeared to be nearly if not quite as fast, although we in the schooner seemed to be rather the more weatherly of the two. This, however, might simply mean that the skipper of the brig was intentionally allowing us to close very gradually with him, in order that he might have the opportunity to get a nearer look at us, and so be enabled to form a better judgment regarding our character, while making his own preparations, if indeed he happened to be the craft for which we were looking. And of this I became increasingly convinced as we gradually neared the brig; for although she was now painted dead black to her bends, without any relief whatever, of colour, there were certain little details and peculiarities of shape and rig that I felt convinced I had seen before.
At length, about three bells, that is to say half-past nine-o’clock, in the forenoon watch, the skipper of the brig seemed to have made up his mind to a definite course of action, for he suddenly put up his helm, squared away, and came running straight down for us. Whereupon we in the schooner at once went to quarters, cast loose the guns, opened the powder magazine, and got a good supply of ammunition up on deck, at the same time hoisting our colours. The stranger, apparently, was not quite so willing as ourselves to display the hue of his bunting; at all events we saw none. But this might have been due to the fact that his gaff-end was obscured from our view by the spread of his topsails. When about half a mile to windward of us the brig, which we could now see was a most beautiful craft, suddenly rounded-to, clewed up her courses and royals, hauled down her flying-jib, and, throwing open her ports, let fly her whole broadside of 9-pounders at us, the shot humming close over our heads and considerably cutting up our rigging. And at the same instant a great black flag went soaring aloft to her gaff-end!
“So,” said I to Simpson, who was standing close beside me, “that clears the ground and enables us to know just where we are. With that black rag staring us in the face there is no possibility of making a mistake. Return his fire, lads, as your guns come to bear, and be careful not to throw a single shot away. Aim at his spars first; then, when we have crippled him, we will close and finish him off.”
But in talking thus I was reckoning without my host, for the brig carried more than twice our weight of metal in her broadside batteries, and a long thirty-two on her forecastle as against our own long eighteen. In a word, I soon found that I had caught a Tartar, for her crew were quite as nimble as our own, and quite as good shots, which was worse. Thus, when it came to playing the dismantling game, which seemed to be the object of both craft, we soon found that we were suffering much more severely than our antagonist. The skipper of the brig saw this quite as clearly as we did, and presently, believing that he had us completely in his power, he bore up and ran down toward us, with the evident intention of boarding.
“Mr Simpson,” said I, “that fellow looks very much as though he intended to lay us aboard. That ought to suit us a great deal better than playing at long bowls, so please have both broadsides and the long gun double-shotted, and we will give him everything we can as he ranges up alongside, and then board him in the smoke, instead of waiting for him to board us.”
“An excellent plan, sir, I think,” answered Simpson. “Boardin’ and bein’ boarded are two very different things; and although them chaps may be ready enough to follow their skipper on to our decks, it’ll take a good deal of the fight out of them if they finds that we’re beforehand with ’em, and that they’ve got to defend their own ship instead of attackin’ us. I’ll go and see everything ready to give ’em a warm reception when they comes alongside.”
We were not long kept in suspense, for, to do the pirates justice, they came on to the attack with every symptom of perfect fearlessness, and we had only just sufficient time wherein to make our preparations when, taking a broad sheer, the brig rounded-to and shot alongside us. At the moment when she was within about a fathom of us, her bulwarks lined with swarthy, unkempt-looking desperadoes, holding themselves in readiness to fling themselves in upon our decks, I gave the word to fire, and the whole double-shotted broadside—with a charge of canister on top of it, which Simpson had quietly ordered to be rammed home on top of the round shot—went crashing into her, making a very pretty “general average” among her crew, and among her spars and rigging. The crew of boarders seemed to have been swept out of existence, and so severely wounded were her masts that the shock of her collision with the schooner, a moment later, sent both of them over the side, fortunately into the sea instead of across our decks; and there she lay, a sheer hulk, secured to us by the grappling irons which our people had promptly hove, and quite unable to escape.
“Hurrah, lads,” I shouted, “we have her now; she cannot escape us! Boarders, follow me!” And away we all went, helter-skelter, over our own bulwarks and those of the brig into the thick cloud of smoke that hung over the brig’s decks, completely obscuring them and everything upon them.
I quite expected to find that our final broadside, in addition to bringing down the brig’s masts, had swept her crew practically out of existence. I was therefore most disagreeably surprised to discover that, despite the havoc which we had undoubtedly wrought, and the evidences of which became clearly visible as the breeze swept the smoke away, the pirates still numbered at least two to our one, and were apparently in nowise dismayed at the havoc which that last broadside of ours had wrought; on the contrary, they received us with the utmost intrepidity, and in an instant we of the Francesca found ourselves hemmed in and pressed so vigorously that, instead of sweeping the decks and carrying the brig with a rush, as I had fully expected we should, it was with the utmost
