“Many thanks to you, young gentleman, for your kind offer,” exclaimed one of the occupants of the sofa, “but if you’ll kindly draw your knife across these lashings of mine you need not call your surgeon away from your own men—who, I’ll be bound, stand in greater need of his services than we do. I am the doctor of this ship, and if I can only get my hands and legs free I’ll soon attend to my share of the patients, and then help my brother saw-bones to attend to his as well, if, indeed, he cares to accept my help.”
“Thank you, my dear sir,” said I, “Mr Sanderson will be only too glad to avail himself of your services, I know; for I fear our casualties to-night will prove to be very heavy when we have time to reckon them up. Allow me.”
I at once set to work to cast the worthy medico adrift, my father at the same time performing a like office for those nearest him; and, having released the doctor, I then hurried out on deck to see how matters were progressing.
I encountered the coxswain and several of the gig’s crew on the quarter-deck. They were just about to enter the cabin in search of me to report that the ship had been searched and all the Frenchmen on board secured and passed down the side into the brigantine, and to inquire what they should next do. Looking over the Indiaman’s lofty bulwarks down on to the deck of the brigantine, I saw that there too the prisoners had been secured and passed below, and that our lads were already busy overhauling the prostrate bodies and separating the living from the dead. I thereupon directed the coxswain to release the crew of the Indiaman—who were at that moment lying bound hand and foot down in the forecastle—to rout out three lanterns, and to hang them lighted one above the other in the ship’s rigging, as a preconcerted signal to Woodford that we had been successful; and then to take the gig with eight hands and pull away to the Dolphin for the doctor. My next task was to send a couple of trustworthy hands into the Indiaman’s cabin to assist the passengers in any way which might be found needful; after which I scrambled down on board the brigantine to see how matters were going there.
I had just gained the deck of the prize when the three lanterns were displayed in the Indiaman’s rigging, upon which a hearty cheer came ringing over the water from no great distance, and, though we could see nothing, the lightning having by this time ceased, we soon heard the measured roll and rattle of sweeps, succeeded a few minutes later by the arrival of the Dolphin alongside; Woodford having grown impatient and determined to see for himself what was going forward.
This, of course, greatly facilitated matters, as we were enabled to transfer our wounded directly on board the schooner, where Sanderson was all ready awaiting them; and this we made our first task. Our casualties were very heavy, as I had feared they would be, five of the attacking party being killed and seventeen of them wounded severely enough to need the doctor’s services; the French loss being twenty-two killed and forty-five wounded; so desperate, indeed, had been their defence that there were only three of them who had escaped completely unscathed. About an hour after the arrival of the Dolphin alongside the prizes, the doctor of the Indiaman came down to assist our surgeon, at the same time reporting all his patients, with one exception—but including the skipper and chief officer, both of whom I had supposed to be dead—to be doing well. The one melancholy exception was the poor little boy I had seen lying wounded in his mother’s lap, and he the worthy doctor feared would not outlast the night. The brave little fellow, it seemed, from the story told by the doctor, had been cruelly cut down by the wretch I had killed, in revenge for the child having resented with a blow an attempted insult to his mother made by the ruffian after all the crew and male passengers of the Indiaman had been secured. I am not ashamed to say that on hearing this I regretted having slain the villain, I felt that death by the sword was too good for him, hanging in chains being more in accordance with his deserts. And here I may state that it seemed more than probable this would be the ultimate fate of the survivors of the brigantine’s crew, for although they claimed that the vessel was a letter of marque, no papers could be found to substantiate that claim, although I allowed the chief officer every facility to find and produce them—if he could.
At length, having seen all the wounded attended to and made as comfortable as possible, and having told off a prize-crew for the brigantine and placed Woodford in command of the Indiaman, with half a dozen Dolphins to assist her own crew in navigating the vessel, I returned on board and had another short but pleasant interview with my father, which was broken in upon by Woodford with the report that a breeze was springing up. I therefore bade a hasty adieu to the passengers, most of whom had by this time in a great measure recovered their equanimity, and hastened on board the schooner, when the three vessels were cast adrift, the sails trimmed to a gentle easterly breeze, and a course shaped for Jamaica, it being my intention to escort the prizes into port.
On the following morning, the weather being fine, I had the gig lowered and went on board the Indiaman—which I may here mention was named the Truxillo; the brigantine being named the Clarice—when I, for the first time, heard an account of the circumstances attending her capture.
She hailed, it appeared, from London, from which port she had originally sailed, having on board twenty-two adult passengers, with five children; specie amounting to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and a very valuable general cargo, all for Kingston. She had joined a convoy at Plymouth, and had sailed with it, all going well with the fleet until they reached the neighbourhood of latitude 25 degrees North and longitude 50 degrees West, when a hurricane was encountered which completely scattered the convoy, and compelled the Truxillo to run to the southward for three days under bare poles. It was, of course, almost hopeless to think of falling in with the fleet again after the hurricane had blown itself out—the fleet no longer existed, in fact, the ships of which it was composed having been pretty effectually dispersed; as soon, therefore, as he could make sail again, Captain Barnes, the master of the Truxillo, determined to shape a course for Jamaica, and take his chance of being able to reach it unmolested. This determination he had put into effect with most satisfactory results up to the moment of his capture, only two sail having been sighted in the interim, neither of which had taken the slightest notice of him. Nor when, on the preceding evening just before sunset, the lookout had sighted and reported the Clarice, did her appearance excite the least uneasiness. She was so small a vessel compared with the Truxillo, that nobody condescended to honour her with more than a glance of the most cursory description. Moreover, being discovered on the starboard bow, reaching out from the direction wherein land was known to be, with her yards artfully ill braced, her canvas badly set, her running gear hanging all in bights, and her speed—retarded by a topmast studding-sail being dropped overboard and towed from her lee quarter—less than that of the veriest Noah’s ark of a north-country collier, she was at once set down as a harmless coaster, and no further notice taken of her. So skilfully, indeed, had the French skipper managed his approach that even when, shortly after midnight, his vessel dropped alongside the Indiaman, the occurrence was regarded as nothing more than an accident of the most trivial character; and it was not until his crew were actually swarming up the Truxillo’s lofty sides that the alarm was given, and the crew, snatching handspikes, belaying-pins, billets of wood from the galley, or any other weapon which they could first lay hands on, too late bestirred themselves in the defence of their ship. Notwithstanding their total lack of preparation the English made a sturdy and protracted resistance, affording the passengers ample time to arm themselves; and when at length the Indiaman’s crew were driven below, the captain and chief mate retreated to the cabin, which, with the assistance of the male passengers, they successfully held for fully twenty minutes after every other part of the ship was in possession of the enemy. It was during this resistance that the two officers named received such serious wounds as prostrated them on the saloon floor apparently lifeless, and it was only with their fall that the resistance terminated.
The fight over, the male passengers were promptly disarmed and secured, and a scene of pillage and violence, the introduction to which was an insult offered to one of the lady passengers and the cruel cutlass-stroke inflicted upon her almost infant son for resenting it, was just commencing, when it was happily cut short by the appearance of the Dolphin’s boats upon the scene.