'Fill the yard heads! Stand off; Re-load, and then bring to again!' This manœuvre was repeated more than once.
Bang! bang! went the six-pounders from the port quarter. The yells were redoubled, and as every man who was not at the guns was busy with his breach-loading rifle, the work soon became hot indeed. While lying close to the gunwale, Charlie and I fired at random with our revolvers under the open leeboard; yet the whole situation was so strangely sudden—so unexpected and improbable—that it seemed as if all this peril was happening not to me—Bob Slingsby—but to someone else.
Close by us was the captain, busy with his Winchester repeating rifle.
The yells of the infuriated pirates, maddened by the slaughter we made among them, became every moment closer and more appalling, and united with the sound of the firing, made such a din that we could not hear ourselves speak.
In the foretopmast of the lorcha they were now getting their horrible stink-balls ready, while, by the use of sweeps, they came close under our stern, and we could see their fierce, dark visages, their glowing eyes, and white glistening teeth. These stink-balls are an odious composition of mealed powder, saltpetre, pitch, and sulphur, rasped hoofs burned in the fire, assafœtida, and all manner of foul-smelling herbs, and they threw them, smoking and flaming, on the quarterdeck by dozens, compelling us to retire forward, if we would escape suffocation.
Several of our men had now fallen, killed or wounded, and the crew of the lorcha came swarming up the mizen chains, over the quarter, and rushed on madly with swords, knives, and fixed bayonets; and then it was the Lascars vanished by running below, or leaping overboard.
In vain our stoutest seamen strove to stem the tide by bayonet and rifle, and the scene became to me agonising and terrific. The whole deck became slippery with blood.
Captain Archibald, bleeding from a wound, was shot again in the forerigging.
'Oh, my wife and bairns!' he cried, and fell dead on the deck. The chief mate fell next: another and another fell, and I found myself seeking shelter from the bullets near the forecastle bitts.
Who had fallen or who escaped I knew not, but the crew of the lorcha were now in full possession of the Bon Accord. Two or three dark faces appeared above the topgallant forecastle. Shots were fired at me, and with a prayer on my lips I fell into the sea, and then thought all was over with me. Mechanically I swam, and the miscreants kept firing at me and some Lascars who were in the water.