The painful task of moving the wounded was then undertaken; and it was most distressing to see how severe our loss had been. Out of a total of thirty-six, all told, which had left the schooner in the boats, five only had escaped uninjured—Courtenay and I had both been hurt, though nothing to speak of—nine were killed, and thirteen so severely wounded as to be unfit for duty.
Having at length seen the launch fairly under weigh for the schooner, I sent Fidd away with four hands in the gig to fire our two smaller prizes—a task which was soon accomplished, as the vessels were lying alongside each other. The felucca’s canvas was then loosed, her anchor was roused up to her bows, and we got under weigh.
We had not proceeded further than a couple of miles down the lagoon before—as I had quite expected—we came upon a battery constructed upon a small projecting spit; which battery, had we been passing up instead of down the lagoon, could have raked us fore and aft for at least twenty minutes, and peppered us with grape for another ten, without our being able to fire a single shot in return. This battery was a hastily constructed affair of sods, and it mounted only one gun, but that gun was a long eighteen; and had we removed the chain barrier which formed the first obstruction, and persevered in our original attempt to pass up the lagoon, there can be no doubt that this gun would have destroyed the schooner and all hands. The people who manned the battery could not possibly have failed to hear the firing that had been going on at the head of the lagoon; but they seemed to have failed to comprehend its full significance, and, therefore, to have been unable to make up their minds to slue the gun round and point it in the opposite direction. This state of indecision on their part not only enabled us to approach them with impunity but also to take them in flank; and a couple of rounds of grape from the felucca so astonished and demoralised them that those who were not killed or disabled by our fire incontinently abandoned the battery and sought safety in flight to the deepest recesses of the bush which lined the shore.
Fidd, with a dozen hands, then jumped into the schooner’s gig, which had been towing astern of the felucca, and shoved off with the object of destroying the battery; and we now had another specimen of the ability with which the defences of the lagoon had been planned; for, on approaching the battery, it was found to be bordered on three sides by a bank of ooze, some ten fathoms broad, which ooze proved to be of such a consistency that, whilst it was much too liquid and too deep to permit of a man wading through it, it was at the same time so thick as to render the passage of a boat through it almost impossible. It took the crew of the gig more than twenty minutes to force the boat through this semi-liquid mass, they exerting themselves to their utmost, meanwhile; so that, had the schooner, in passing up the lagoon, managed to survive the fire of the gun, any attempt to storm the battery with the aid of boats must have resulted in irretrievable disaster. However, Fidd and his blue-jackets managed to reach terra firma eventually; and it was then the work of only a few minutes to capsize the gun and all its appurtenances over the edge of the bank into the ooze, where the whole was instantly swallowed up.
Meanwhile, the felucca, slowly drifting down the lagoon, encountered—at a distance of some fifty fathoms below the battery—another obstacle, in the shape of a second chain, similar to the former, stretched across the channel, which rendered our further progress impossible until the barrier had been removed. This—there being nobody to interfere with our actions—was soon done; and we then passed on, meeting with no further obstruction until we came to the first chain. This, like the one previously passed, was removed by casting off both ends and allowing the whole affair to sink to the bottom of the lagoon—where it was doubtless instantly swallowed up by the mud—and in less than half an hour afterwards we found ourselves clear of the terrible lagoons altogether and fairly in Santa Clara Bay, where we fell in with the Foam, hove to and waiting for us.
It was by this time within an hour of sunset; so, as I was anxious to get into open water before nightfall, it was arranged that we should go out to sea through the Manou Channel and Cardenas Bay, as we had before done in the Pinta; and the passage was accomplished without mishap; Diana Cay being passed on our larboard hand, and the vessels’ heads being laid north by east just as the first stars began to twinkle out from the darkening blue above us.
Shortly after this it fell calm; and advantage was taken of the brief period of inactivity preceding the springing up of the land-breeze to apportion the few effective hands remaining to us as fairly as possible between the schooner and her prize, the latter being, of course, put under Courtenay’s command, with Pottle, the quarter-master, as lieutenants, gun-room officers, and midshipmen all rolled into one. Courtenay’s crew, with their kits and hammocks, were transferred to the felucca in good time to fill on her and stand on in the wake of the Foam with the first of the land-breeze; and then, with Pottle in temporary charge of the prize, and Tompion keeping a lookout on the deck of the schooner, Courtenay and I, more firmly knit together than ever by the trying events of the day we had just passed through, sat down to talk matters quietly over together while we discussed the very creditable dinner which the steward had provided for us.
On the following morning the melancholy task of burying our dead was performed, both vessels being hove to, with their colours’ hoisted half-mast high, during the ceremony; and I think it was a very great relief to all hands when, the poor fellows—ten in all, including O’Flaherty—having been consigned with all solemnity to their last resting-place beneath the heaving billow, we were able to fill away again and resume our course to the northward and eastward.
Noon that day found us three miles to windward of the Anguilas, situate at the south-east extremity of the Cay Sal Bank; and an hour later the lookout on board the Foam reported a sail, apparently a large schooner, on our weather-beam, running up the Old Channel under easy canvas. The breeze was then blowing rather fresh at about east by north, the Foam thrashing along with her lee covering-board awash, her royal stowed, and her topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing-rods; whilst the felucca was about three miles ahead of us and broad on our weather bow, going two feet to our one, and weathering on us at every plunge. We were consequently sailing at right angles to the stranger, and rather drawing away from the line of her course than otherwise; yet such was the speed with which she came along that in half an hour she was hull-up from our deck. It now became apparent that she was manifesting a certain amount of curiosity as to who and what we might happen to be; for instead of gradually revealing her starboard broadside to us, as she would have done had she held on her original course, she was gradually hauling her wind by keeping her bowsprit pointed straight for us. I was at first disposed to regard her as English, but the enormous spread of her lower and topsail-yards convinced me, upon her nearer approach, that I was mistaken. That same peculiarity of rig was a strong argument against the assumption of her being French; and, considerably puzzled what to make of her, I sent for my glass, in order to get a clearer view of her. By the time that the instrument had been brought on deck and put into my hand she was within four miles of us; and a single glance through the telescope sufficed to tell me who and what she was. Yes, there could be no doubt about it; the craft running down so rapidly toward us was none other than Merlani’s schooner, the identical craft Courtenay and I had seen hove down on the occasion of our visit to the Conconil lagoons.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish, indeed! The fellow’s decks would, of course, be crowded with men, whilst I had not enough hands to man a single broadside, supposing even that I sent every available man to the guns, leaving the canvas to take care of itself! And as for Courtenay, he was even worse off than myself. I was puzzled what to do for the best; for I felt that a single false move at such a juncture, and in the presence of such an enemy, might involve us in absolute ruin. A hurried consultation with the boatswain and gunner, however, decided me to put a bold face upon the affair and “brazen it out;” in accordance with which resolution our ensign and pennant were hoisted, the topgallant-sail was clewed up and furled, and the gaff-topsail hauled down and stowed. Courtenay very smartly followed suit in the matter of showing his colours, tacking at the same time and edging down toward us. This evidently shook the nerves of our unwelcome neighbour somewhat; he seemed to think two to one rather long odds, for he immediately bore away far enough to show us his gaff-end clear of his topsail, when he at once ran up the stars and stripes. With this display of bunting we, of course, feigned to be perfectly satisfied, and each vessel held on her course, Merlani, doubtless, chuckling to think how smartly he had hoodwinked us, whilst we were only too pleased at having got out of the difficulty so easily. On Courtenay rounding to under our stern it appeared that he, too, believed the strange craft to be Merlani’s schooner; like me, he had been temporarily thrown off his balance; and like me, also, he had just come to the conclusion that a bold front was the proper game to play, when the sight of our colours and our shortening of sail gave him his cue, and he had forthwith put down his helm and come round to take his part in the game of braggadocio.