“Hold, sir!” interrupted Wilder, with sufficient decision to check his Commander’s premature exultation; “on my life, our work is not so soon ended. I think, indeed, his guns are silent;—but, see! the smoke is beginning to lift. In a few more minutes, if our own fire should cease, the view will be clear.”
A shout from the men in the batteries interrupted his words; and then came a general cry that the pirates were sheering off. The exultation at this fancied evidence of their superiority was, however, soon and fearfully interrupted. A bright, vivid flash penetrated through the dense vapour which still hung about them in a most extraordinary manner, and was followed by a crash from the heavens, to which the Simultaneous explosion of fifty pieces of artillery would have sounded feeble.
“Call the people from their guns!” said Bignall, in those suppressed tones that are only more portentous from their forced and unnatural calmness: “Call them away at once, sir, and get the canvas in!”
Wilder, startled more at the proximity and apparent weight of the squall than at words to which he had been long accustomed, delayed not to give an order that was seemingly so urgent. The men left their batteries, like athletæ retiring from the arena, some bleeding and faint, some still fierce and angry, and all more or less excited by the furious scene in which they had just been actors. Many sprung to the well-known ropes, while others, as they ascended into the cloud which still hung on the vessel became lost to the eye in her rigging.
“Shall I reef, or furl?” demanded Wilder, standing with the trumpet at his lips, ready to issue the necessary order.
“Hold, sir; another minute will give us an opening.”
The lieutenant paused; for he was not slow to see that now, indeed, the veil was about to be drawn from their real situation. The smoke, which had lain upon their very decks, as though pressed down by the superincumbent weight of the atmosphere first began to stir; was then seen eddying among the masts; and, finally, whirled wildly away before a powerful current of air. The view was, indeed, now all before them.
In place of the glorious sun, and that bright, blue canopy which had lain above them a short half-hour before, the heavens were clothed in one immense black veil. The sea reflected the portentous colour, looking dark and angrily. The waves had already lost their regular rise and fall, and were tossing to and fro, as if awaiting the power that was to give them direction and greater force. The flashes from the heavens were not in quick succession; but the few that did break upon the gloominess of the scene came in majesty, and with dazzling brightness. They were accompanied by the terrific thunder of the tropics in which it is scarcely profanation to fancy that the voice of One who made the universe is actually speaking to the creatures of his hand. On every side, was the appearance of a fierce and dangerous struggle in the elements. The vessel of the Rover was running lightly before a breeze, which had already come fresh and fitful from the cloud, with her sails reduced, and her people coolly, but actively, employed in repairing the damages of the fight.
Not a moment was to be lost in imitating the example of the wary freebooters. The head of the “Dart” was hastily, and happily, got in a direction contrary to the breeze; and, as she began to follow the course taken by the “Dolphin,” an attempt was made to gather her torn and nearly useless causes to the yards. But precious minutes had been lost in the smoky canopy, that might never be regained. The sea changed its colour from a dark green to a glittering white; and then the fury of the gust was heard rushing along the water with fearful rapidity, and with a violence that could not he resisted.
“Be lively, men!” shouted Bignall himself, in the exigency in which his vessel was placed; “Roll up the cloth; in with it all—leave not a rag to the squall! ’Fore George, Mr Wilder, but this wind is not playing with us; cheer up the men to their work; speak to them cheerily, sir!”