"What flag?" inquired Loff, taking a pocket spyglass from his jacket.
"Ha! you have a glass! Give it me!" he cried, hastily. "By Heaven!" he cried, after a moment's surveying, "'tis the same! The very initials. Now the wind opens it. 'Tis the same with the earl's crest! What can it mean? This youth Edwin may have become her champion since I so foolishly gave him his liberty! He, and none else, commands the barges! But there is too much skill displayed in directing the pursuit to emanate from a boy like him! Yet why this flag? Among the dense mass of heads beneath I cannot distinguish the leader's features!"
"Shall we board the nearest yacht?" asked Loff. "We shall soon be close upon them."
Kyd turned and found that he was within a mile of three sloops that lay under the guns of the Rondeel. He looked back and saw that the barges were coming with increased speed, and would be up with him by the time he could reach the vessels. He cheered on his men with every gesture and word of encouragement; but, with all their exertions, he perceived that at every dip of their sweeps his pursuers gained on him.
At length the carronade from the leading boat opened upon them for the first time since sunrise and with terrible effect upon the nearest boat, commanded by Lawrence. Nearly every bullet told in the plank or flesh; and the ill-fated boat, which seemed to have received the whole charge from the piece, instantly went down, leaving (so effectually had it been converted into their coffin) only Lawrence and one of his comrades floating wounded upon the surface.
"For the yacht—never stop to pick him up! for the yacht! Your lives depend on your reaching it!" shouted Kyd, with desperation. "Pull, ye dogs! Strong! together all! Bend to your sweeps like devils! In five minutes we'll be on board."
But the crew of the sloop, consisting of three or four men only, were already aware of their danger; and, cutting their cable, hoisted their jib and mainsail with what haste the occasion demanded, and, aided by the wind and tide, moved swiftly down the harbour beyond their reach. The other vessels followed this example as rapidly as possible; and, ere the pirates could get alongside, they were sailing away at a rate that defied pursuit.
"We are foiled by the devil's own aid!" said Kyd. He paused a moment. His pursuers were close upon him, and, save the shore, there was no avenue of escape. To delay and fight with his reduced number, even if his jaded and dispirited men would consent to it, would have been certain capture and death. For an instant he paused, and then said, in the calm, deliberate tone he was accustomed to use in times of most imminent peril,
"We must pull in shore and fight our way across the town to the East River, where we can cut out one of the vessels in the dock. There is no alternative! The town's people will scarce resist us! Will you land and let me lead you, men?"
"Ay, to the shore!" was the general cry; and swiftly the boats cut their way towards the foot of the Rondeel, which they approached on the western side, out of the range of its few remaining guns. Close in hot pursuit came the barges, pouring in upon them a constant and fatal discharge of firearms. The carronade was no longer fired, as its rebound so materially checked the speed of the boat that it soon fell behind all the others.