Humphrey Bold: A Story of the Times of Benbow

by Herbert Strang

What ensued taught them a lesson. A second fusillade burst from the vessel; two of the negroes fell with howls of pain; the rest scurried back in dismay, and some few took to their heels and fled squealing into the woods. I called them back and rated them soundly for disobeying orders, and then we placed them again in a secure position and the bombardment recommenced.

I reckoned that within a minute or two five hundred stones had been hurled from the cliff, and though many more fell upon the sand than upon the deck I saw that the effect was answering my hopes. Some of the crew retreated to the lee side of the masts; others crouched under the guns, whence they fired their muskets, slowly and with difficulty, doing us no harm; others again took refuge by the break of the poop, and in the round house and the forecastle.

One man with great boldness tried to climb the rigging to the cross-trees, no doubt with intent to get a better aim. But he instantly became the target for a perfect hurricane of stones, and he dropped to the deck and crawled painfully away. In a few minutes not a man was to be seen.

Bidding the negroes continue to throw, but not so rapidly, I lay down on the cliff top and took a good look at the vessel. So far as I could discover, no one was so posted as to be able to see below the level of the deck and I deemed that the time had come to attempt the second and more hazardous part of my plan. Leaving Uncle Moses to superintend the activities of the main body of negroes, I crept down the gap with Cludde, Punchard and a score of the men who possessed arms of a sort, and came (not without some perilous stumbles) to the sea line, immediately opposite to the bow of the brig. Then those of us who had muskets lit our matches, and I set forward across the sand, bending almost double, and making straight for the figurehead, the others close behind me in single file. Stones were still falling from the cliff, and I was in fear, as we approached the vessel, lest some of the negroes should be hit and betray us with a cry. But we arrived beneath the bow without this mishap and undiscovered, and crept round to the larboard side, where we were sheltered by the intervening hull.

We made for the cable to which the kedge anchor was attached, and I began to swarm up, any sound that I may have made being smothered by the clatter of stones on the planks of the deck. I gained the poop without being seen, but immediately afterwards I heard a yell from the roundhouse, and the men who had sheltered there began to pour out.

But having seen the uselessness of their fusillade against the cliff they had allowed their matches to go out, so that I was for the moment safe from musket shot. When I fired and brought down the first man, the rest hesitated, and seeing my companions clambering up behind me they scuttled back into the roundhouse again. The instant Joe Punchard reached the deck he swung round one of the brass guns to command the roundhouse. It was already loaded, as the buccaneers knew, and Joe cried out that he would send them all to Davy Jones if they showed their noses outside the door.

The shower of stones had now ceased, and the men who had gone below were swarming up to meet this unlooked-for boarding party. Cludde and I, with our negroes, were upon them before they had time to collect their wits. And then ensued as pretty a bit of close fighting as ever I was engaged in. We laid about us right lustily with our clubbed muskets, and I will say for the black men that they were not a whit less doughty than the white. Our first success had, I suppose, given them confidence; and Noah, with his firm belief in the virtue of the talisman slung about his neck, threw himself into the very forefront of the struggle, dodging the cutlasses of the buccaneers with great agility, and slipping in under their guard with shrewd thrusts of his knife.

They still outnumbered us, I think (for you may be sure I was too busy to count them); but they were disheartened, no doubt, as any men would be, at this rude and sudden onslaught on their security, and with their comrades cooped up under the menace of the guns they fought without the confidence that goes so far to win victory. Moreover, they lacked leadership. The master of the brig, as I afterwards discovered, was in the roundhouse, and Vetch (in this equal to himself) was not to be seen, having ever a tender regard for the safety of his skin. And so, after some few minutes of it, the buccaneers turned tail and fled for their lives into the forecastle, where they barricaded themselves.

Leaving Cludde to keep an eye on them, I rushed down the companion to find Vetch and to assure Mistress Lucy that her troubles were at an end. And there was Vetch, trying to batter down the door of the cabin in which she had locked herself. His design, I guessed, was to seize her and use her to extort terms from us. He had the advantage of me in that I was coming from the full daylight into the dimness of below decks, and before I had reached the ladder foot he fired his pistol at me, the bullet striking my thigh. I fell to the floor; he sprang over my body and up the steps; I cried out to Cludde to seize him, and to Mistress Lucy that the fight was over, and then all things became a blank to me.

When I came to myself, I knew by the lazy rocking of the vessel that it was once more afloat; I was lying on a bench beneath a porthole, and when I turned my head to see more particularly where I was, Mistress Lucy came towards me, her eyes shining with kindness.