“Here I am, sir,” answered the quarter-master; and turning in the direction of his voice I saw a tiny glowing spark which proved to be the ignited end of a cigar which he had between his teeth.
“Now,” said I, as I groped my way to his side, “whereaway was this flashing appearance which you say you saw?”
“Just about in that direction, sir,” was the reply; “or stay—we may have swung a bit since I saw it,” and he walked aft and carefully raised a jacket which he had thrown over the lighted binnacle. “No,” he continued, “that’s where it was, just sou’-sou’-west, for I took the bearing of it when I saw it the third time; and I thought that, in case of anything being wrong, it wouldn’t be amiss to mask the binnacle light.”
“Quite right,” said I, peering first at the compass card and then away into the opaque darkness which prevented our seeing even the surface of the water alongside. It was manifestly hopeless to think of seeing anything through such impenetrable obscurity as that which surrounded us; and I was just wondering what steps to take, under the circumstances, peering meanwhile in the direction indicated by Pottle, when I caught a momentary glimpse of a tiny spark-like flash—which the ejaculations of my comrades told me they also had observed—and in another instant a glare of ghastly blue-white radiance streamed out over the sea and revealed to us two vessels alongside each other, the canvas of the one—a large lumbering full-rigged ship, gleaming spectrally in the light of the port-fire, whilst the sails of the other—a brigantine, which happened to be on the side next us—stood out black as ebony against the light. They were about two miles off; and even at that distance we could see with the naked eye that a struggle of some sort was going forward on the decks of the larger of the two craft. The nature of the affair was apparent in a moment to every one of us. The big ship was unmistakably an Indiaman, probably a fellow-countryman; at least so we judged by the imperfect view of his canvas which the flickering light of the port-fire afforded us; whilst, if appearances were to go for anything, the brigantine could be nothing else than a French picaroon. At all events our duty was now plain enough, we ought to investigate the affair without a moment’s unnecessary delay; and I accordingly gave orders for all hands to be immediately called, and for the pinnace and the two gigs to be lowered and manned. This was done with an alacrity which I venture to believe would have gratified even my old friend the admiral himself; and in less than a quarter of an hour from the moment of giving the order we were in the boats and well away from the schooner. The pinnace was in charge of the boatswain; Pottle had the command of one of the gigs; and, as there seemed to be no prospect of any worse outcome, in the shape of weather, than a thunder-storm, I did not hesitate to take charge of the other gig myself, leaving Woodford in temporary command of the schooner with instructions how to proceed in the event of a breeze springing up before we were able to rejoin him.
The port-fire on board the Indiaman having long before burnt-out, we had taken the precaution to provide each boat with a compass, the light of which was most carefully-masked; but this precaution soon proved to be unnecessary, the boats having traversed less than half the distance between the schooner and the other two vessels when vivid sheet lightning began to play along the south-western horizon, lighting up the scene with its weird radiance frequently enough to enable us to steer a perfectly straight course. The fight was still going on when we left the schooner; but it appeared to cease soon afterwards, and we came to the conclusion that the crew of the Indiaman had been overpowered and the ship taken. Our chief anxiety now was lest our approach should be discovered in time to enable the Frenchman to make preparations for resisting our attempts to board them when we should arrive alongside; but, fortunately for us, the chief play of the lightning was in the quarter almost opposite that from which we were approaching, and I was in hopes that they would be too busy just then plundering the prize to keep a very strict lookout. In this, however, I was doomed to be disappointed; for when we had arrived within a quarter of a mile of the brigantine a sudden flashing of lights appeared on board her, and before we could get alongside a broadside of four guns, loaded with grape, was hastily discharged at us. Luckily, beyond revealing the fact that we had been discovered, the broadside did us no harm; and, with a cheer, our tars bent to their oars and, with a few lusty strokes, sent us alongside with a rush.
The brigantine, a long and exceedingly rakish-looking craft, sat very low in the water, so that it appeared to be one of the easiest things in the world to scramble in over her bulwarks from the boats; but we found those bulwarks lined from stem to stern with as resolute-looking a set of fellows as one need wish to see, and their reception of us, as regards warmth, left absolutely nothing to be desired. They evidently knew and fully appreciated the advantage they possessed over us in having a good roomy deck to fight upon, and they seemed fully resolved to retain that advantage as long as possible. Three separate and distinct attempts did we make to surmount the low barrier; and as many times were we forced back into the boats, each occasion being marked by the accession of some three or four to the number of our wounded. On the fourth occasion, however, I determined that gain the deck of that brigantine I would, by hook or by crook; so calling Collins, the coxswain of my boat, and another man to my aid, I ordered them each to seize me by a leg and fling me on board, which they did with a regular man-of-war’s-man’s “one—two—three—heave!” and away I went in over the bulwarks like a rocket, alighting fairly on the shoulders of a great burly fellow who had already lodged a pistol bullet in the fleshy part of my left arm—and to whom I consequently owed a grudge—beating him down to the deck, only to find myself in the very thickest of the crowd, every man of which seemed more anxious than the others to get a fair blow at me. I was, however, by this time no mere novice in the use of the sword, and I no sooner felt myself fairly on my feet than I made the weapon spin about my adversaries’ heads in such good earnest that they were compelled to recoil. Meanwhile my lads had no sooner launched me into space than they sprang after me, and, pressing forward to my side with their cutlasses advanced, we soon made room enough for the rest of our party to follow. But though we had gained the deck we had by no means won the ship, our antagonists rallying time after time as we drove them back, and stubbornly contesting with us the possession of every inch of plank. Meanwhile the storm which had so long been brewing had at length burst almost immediately overhead, the lightning flashing and playing about the mast-heads of the ships with a dazzling vividness which was almost blinding, whilst the thunder crashed and roared and rolled along the heavens absolutely without intermission. The general effect was impressive and appalling in the extreme—or would have been had we been in a mood to properly appreciate it; but just then our only thought—or mine, at least—with regard to it was that it afforded us light enough to fight by and to distinguish friends from foes. And it was by the friendly aid of the lightning that I was, in the midst of the mêlée, enabled to identify an object, which I had once or twice kicked from under my feet, as a flannel cartridge. I had already noticed several charges of grape ranged along the shot-racks; and it now occurred to me that one of these discharged into the thick of our enemies might help very materially to mitigate their ardour. So, turning to some of the lads behind, I directed them to run in one of the guns, load it, and slue it fore and aft, with its muzzle pointing toward the taffrail, in which direction we were slowly pressing the crew of the brigantine. This was soon done; when, taking advantage of a momentary lull in the confusion of sound which raged about us, I shouted:
“Back, Dolphins, into the waist, for your lives; we are about to treat them to a dose of grape!”
Our lads luckily heard and understood me; we pressed forward with increased energy for a moment, huddling the Frenchmen all up in a heap together just about the companion-way, and then suddenly retired forward, leaving the gun, a nine-pounder, grinning open-mouthed fair at them. The moment that the last of our men was fairly out of danger the topman who had taken charge of the gun discharged it; we immediately rushed aft again, charging through the smoke, found the foe, as we had expected, quite confused and demoralised from the effect of the fire, and, pressing upon them more fiercely than ever, compelled them to throw down their arms and cry for quarter, though not until I had been compelled in self-defence to run their leader through with my sword.
The brigantine was now our own, so leaving Pottle and the boatswain to secure the prisoners, which task they set about without a moment’s delay, I rallied my own boat’s crew about me and led them on board the Indiaman to take possession of her. We met with no opposition whilst climbing the ship’s lofty sides; but on gaining the deck a group of some half a dozen figures were discovered mounting guard over the fore-scuttle. Despatching the coxswain and three hands to secure these, and the remainder of the crew to hunt up any stray Frenchmen who might happen to be lurking about the decks, I turned my steps in the direction of the poop cabin, and calling one hand to attend me, at once made my way thither.
One of the doors was standing wide open, with a brilliant stream of light pouring through it, lighting up the massive mainmast and the gear attached to it for a height of some twelve feet above the deck, and revealing the fact that the quarter-deck guns at least of the vessel had never been cast loose, thus confirming me in the suspicion I had before entertained that the vessel had been taken by surprise. Entering the cabin, a strange scene presented itself. The apartment itself was very spacious, being of the full width of the ship, and extending right aft (the sleeping cabins and the captain’s private quarters, I subsequently discovered, were situated below, on the main-deck); and it was very handsomely fitted up with rosewood and maple panels, a great deal of gilt moulding, several mirrors, and some half a dozen very decently executed pictures; whilst a handsome five-light chandelier—with one of the lamps recently broken—swung from the beams overhead. Against the forward bulkhead and between the two doors giving admission to the cabin there stood a very massive and handsomely carved buffet, on which stood a quantity of finely cut crystal, several decanters containing wine and spirits, and some fruit dishes loaded with fruit. A long table stood fore and aft in the centre of the saloon with, perhaps, a couple of dozen luxurious-looking chairs ranged round it; and along each side of the cabin ran a range of wide handsomely upholstered sofa lockers. The floor was covered with a thick Turkey carpet of handsome design. But it was not so much the rich furnishing of the saloon which made it remarkable; it was the aspect and grouping of the people I found there. A dozen or more gentlemen, clad only in their shirts and trousers, and several of them bleeding from wounds, were seated on the lockers, with their feet lashed together and their arms tied behind them. At the far end of the cabin, abaft the table, and crouching on the floor, huddled a number of ladies and children in their night-dresses, all of them pale as death and looking dreadfully frightened, whilst one of the ladies was weeping hysterically over a little chubby, fair, and curly-headed boy of some six or seven years old, who was moaning piteously the while the blood trickled from a wound in his head, matting his golden curls together into a gory mass and slowly spreading out in a great ensanguined stain on the sleeve of his mother’s night-dress. Near the door by which I entered lay the apparently dead bodies of two men, who I took, from their dress, to be the captain and chief mate of the ship; and close to them stood a tall, handsome, dark-skinned Frenchman, with gold rings in his ears, a naval cap with a gold band on his head, a crimson silk sash round his waist, fairly bristling with pistols, a drawn sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, evidently mounting guard over the prisoners. As I entered the cabin this fellow turned to meet me. The moment he saw me to be a stranger up went his pistol, and, before I had time to realise what he was about, there was a flash, a blow followed by a sharp stinging sensation along the left side of my head, a thud, a groan, and a fall behind me; then came a lunging thrust from his sword, which I had the good luck to parry; this parry I followed up with a lightning-like thrust; my sword passed through his heart, and he fell dead on the carpet close to the two bodies I have already mentioned. All this passed as it were in a moment, with such startling suddenness, indeed, that it left me quite dazed, so that for a few seconds I could scarcely realise exactly what had happened. On recovering my self-possession, my first thought was for the man who had been following me into the cabin. I turned round to ascertain whether the groan had proceeded from him, and there, prone in the passage-way behind me, lay the poor fellow on his back, stone dead, the bullet having crashed into his brain through his right eye.