"Cut away stern-boat—let hims all burn—agh! agh!" grinned Cuffy, who, by a slash of the knife which hung at his neck, cut adrift the boat which was moored astern. We had not intended thus to destroy the retreat of the wretches on board, but the African was merciless to his enemies, and we had no time to repair his severity.
"Give way," shouted Hartly, as soon as we were clear of her; "clap on dry nippers! By Jove! those lads of the knife and pistol will never come athwart the hawse of the Leda again!"
We had not pulled ten strokes from her, ere a flame seemed to play on the water beneath her counter!
It spread rapidly between the rudder and sternpost, burning through outer and inner sheathing; penetrating the rudder-case, and reaching the cabin, which was unoccupied, as all the crew were ashore save the six already mentioned, whom we saw loitering amidships. One was provided with a musket, which no doubt he would have discharged at us, had we lingered another moment alongside.
Suddenly they raised a shout; then we saw them rush aft, when they immediately discovered the vessel to be on fire, and that their only boat was adrift!
He with the musket took a long aim at us, and fired; but as we were now three hundred yards from the schooner, and our boat was alternately rising and falling on the long rolling swell that heaved between Gull Island and Cape St. John, his shot fell far from us.
By this time the schooner was hopelessly on fire; her whole quarter-deck, stern, and cabin, forward to the mainmast, were sheeted with red and roaring flame. It spread along the deck; it leaped up the well-greased masts like a fiery corkscrew, round the tarred rigging and over the handed canvas, till everything was in a blaze; the great fore and aft sails fell from their brails like fiery curtains; then we saw her two tall, slender spars, the long boom of her mainsail, her towering gaffs and topsail yards, all swaying to-and-fro, as the decks fell in and the shrouds sank smouldering into the sea. Then everything went to cinders fore and aft—aloft and alow!
A lurid glare that outshone the light of the rising moon, overspread the calm blue sea, casting a ruddy glow upon our faces as we paused upon our oars, close to the island, where the weird illumination scared all the sea-birds; thus we heard the shrill scream of the wagel or great grey gull, as he rose with booming wings and flew to seek the darker waters of the offing or the frozen bluffs of Cape St. John, on which the thundering breakers as they reared their heads, gleamed in the double light of red and silver, like showers of diamonds and rubies.
"Jack—see how she burns!" said Hartly: "there goes her mainmast crash into the sea—and now the foremast, a mass of whizzing sparks, with all its top-hamper! Pull for the island, till the brig comes abreast of it;" and then cheerily he sang—
"Haul away, pull away, pull, jolly boys!
At the mercy of fortune we go,
We're in for it now, and 'tis all folly, boys,
To be faint or downhearted, yeho!"