By this time the schooner was a mass of fire, and burnt down nearly to her bends. Through the flames we could see the blackened stumps of her timber-heads, standing in a row from stem to stern. Suddenly there was an explosion, and a mighty column of red and blue sparks and burning brands shot into mid air, arching over in every direction as they fell hissing into the sea.
A quantity of powder had exploded on board!
Just at that moment we beached our boat upon Gull Island, and ascended the rocks in haste to view the result of our handiwork.
A great cloud of smoke was now settling over her, as the flames approached the water; and beyond this cloud we could see a little boat with some men in it, pulling in the direction of Cape St. John. Hartly was pleased on seeing this; for although he had resolved to destroy the schooner, his heart reproached him for leaving six of the pirates to perish in her. One, no doubt, had swum after their drifting boat, and brought her alongside in time to save his five shipmates; and then we laughed on thinking how cold his swim would be in the wintry waves, and of the baffled rage of the ruffians at La Scie, left there without a vessel or any means of escape from a desolate fishing-station, which in a week or two more would have, perhaps, three hundred miles of field-ice between it and the sea.
A faint hurrah now came from seaward. We turned, and saw the smart and saucy Leda with her foresail backed flat to the mast, and her maintopsail full and swelling—her straight sharp hull, and her taut rigging, in all its details, clearly and distinctly defined against the vast silver disc of the moon, which seemed to linger as it rose from the flat horizon of the distant offing. There was no need of showing lights on board the brig, as we could see each other distinctly, and also the burning pirate. No flame rose from her now; but a vast black pall of smoke enveloped all her hull.
From the centre of this, there came a sound like a deep sob, as she filled and went down. Then when the smoky pall arose and melted into thin air, not a vestige could be seen of the Black Schooner!
"And now, my lads, away for the brig," said Captain Hartly, as we descended from the highest part of the island to reach our boat, passing through deep snow, among thickets of dwarf firs and great juniper trees—over rocks covered with savin and frozen furze, where, in the short season of summer, the wild Indian tea called wisha-capucoa grew plentifully, and where the beaver and the musk-rat had their holes.
As we floundered down to the creek, a yell from Cuffy Snowball, who was behind, startled us all. A wild cariboo deer had rushed past him. How it came on the island puzzled us, for usually in winter these animals seek the forests of the interior, till the sun of the brief summer melts the snow, and enables them to browse on the scanty herbage of the barrens, as the cleared patches of moorland are named by the squatters.
"If the Governor adheres to his proclamation, this night's work adds five hundred pounds to our profits," said Hartly, as the crew received us with hearty cheers; the headsails were filled, and we at once stood off the shore.
Next morning, when day broke, we could see by our glasses a band of men assembled on the snow-covered summit of Cape St. John.