"Base infidels, surrender or sink!" cried a voice from the corvette, as we crossed on opposite tacks.
"To the tyrant knights of Malta!" bellowed Lancelloti through his trumpet: "to become their slaves! Bah! Never, while the great deep can hide us, and we can throw a match in the magazine!" After a good deal of skilful manoeuvring, the action commenced in stern earnest.
The pirates fought like demons: for slavery or death was their fate if vanquished; but the Christians opposed them with coolness and bravery, The heavy metal of the latter battered to wreck and ruin the bulwarks of the former,—dismantling their guns, and heaping the deck with dead; whom they were soon compelled to throw overboard to clear the way. The enormous fifty pound balls of the corvette's forecastle piece, created a devastation, to behold which made my heart leap with joy. The corsair was evidently getting the worst of the battle: her deck was torn up and ploughed in a thousand places, and the white splinters flew around in incessant showers; her sails were blown to rags, her standing and running rigging hung all in bights and loops, useless and disordered; while the blessed banner, the taper masts, and taut cordage of the Gierusalemme towered above the dense smoke in as perfect order as when the engagement began.
During this yard-arm contest, my situation was horrible: I was ironed helplessly to the deck, amid all its fury, and was, consequently, unable to fight or fly, to save Laura or myself. Ah! how I trembled lest the missiles of the Maltese might penetrate the place of her confinement. Incessantly they were crashing around me, tearing up the strong planks, dashing boats and booms to fragments, and scattering brains and blood on every side. The slippery deck was flooded with the red current, which gushed from the lee scuppers. I was suffocating beneath the corpses which fell continually above me, and shrieked and struggled under the ghastly load; but the ring-bolts were immoveable, and my cries were unheeded amid that frightful din. On all sides rang the curses, threats and cheers of the living, the groans of the dying, the clanking of blocks and handspikes, the rattle of chains, and stamping of feet, mingled with the creaking and jarring of the guns as they were worked on deck, hauled back by their tackles, loaded and urged again to port; and then burst the deafening roar, while the small arms from forecastle, poop, and tops, made up a medley of horrors! Riddled below and wrecked aloft, the corsair lay like a log on the water, and the fire of her guns died away.
La Gierusalemme forged ahead and lay across her bows, which the Maltese grappled fast; and the brave cavalier who commanded leaped upon her bowsprit at the head of his boarders. A yell burst from the pirates as the red flag of death floated from the Gierusalemme; whose guns, crammed to the muzzle with round shot and grape, were once more poured into her: the tremendous fury of the broadside, sweeping through from stem to stern, killed one-half of her fighting men, and struck consternation to the souls of the rest.
The moment of deliverance was at hand. On came the boarders like a torrent; when a cry of "fire!" arrested the faculties of all, and Petronio, the demon-monk, leaped up the hatchway with a flaming match: he had fired the ship.
"Throw her off—cut the grapplings—man the main-deck guns—fill the fore-yard! Bravissimo, St. John for Malta!" cried Castelermo, as his boarders scrambled back to the corvette, and their foes fought like fiends at the grapnels, that all might perish together. But the Maltese passed from their reach, backed their mainyard, and once more their broadside belched forth destruction on the sinking Crescent. Three hours had the combat lasted: the setting sun was now gilding the Tunisian hills and the Isle of Giamour.
The corsair was soon enveloped in a cloud of murky vapour, which rolled away to leeward; and Lancelloti, after throwing all his wounded overboard, prepared to abandon the wreck. Concealed by the smoke, the crew crowded into their remaining boats and fled.
O, signor, imagine my situation then! Laura—if she yet lived—and myself, were alone in the corsair; which reeled every instant as the heavy shot of the corvette pierced her. I heard a shriek from the cabin—another: it died away—O, frightful! The corsair was now a mass of flame. I might have saved Laura had I been free, but ironed hand and foot to the accursed deck—a victim, helpless as herself—I could only rave and pray; until exhausted by the terrible emotions which wrung my soul, and half-stifled by the heat and smoke, I lay motionless in a state of stupefaction and misery.
As from an ocean hell, the hot flames burst through every hatch and port: all became red around me—my heart panted, my eyes were bursting in their sockets. I saw the masts and yards blazing and rocking above me; I heard the "vivas" of the Maltese, and the report of the corsair's guns exploding, as they successively became heated by the roaring and scorching flame.