Barbados howled more commands. From the pirate ship came a rain of fire balls, and flaming torches were hurled. It was a favorite pirate trick, and the men knew what their commander wanted. Clouds of pungent smoke rolled across the deck of the schooner.
The caballeros gasped and fought to get to the clean, pure air. Their nostrils and throats were raw, their eyes stinging.
Through the dense smoke they could see little. The pirate ship gradually was lengthening the distance between her and the trading schooner. The pirates’ work had been done.
For the sails of the schooner were wrapped in flames, and bits of them fell, burning, to the deck below. Flames licked at the tarred rigging and spread out on the spars.
“She’s making away!” Don Audre Ruiz cried. “She’s running from us!”
There seemed to be no question about it now. The pirates were hurrying away without giving battle. And the raging caballeros wanted battle, and they remembered that the señorita was yet on the pirate craft.
The captain was howling to his crew, and the men were fighting the raging flames. The caballeros, forgetting their silks and satins and plumes, ran to help. Here was a foe more formidable than pirates of the open sea.
The schooner drifted with the water and the wind in the wake of the pirate ship. The smoke drifted away, and finally the fire was extinguished. Quick inventory was taken of the damage.
It did not amount to so very much, since the rigging had not been burned to a great extent. But the sails were gone, for the greater part, and pursuit for the moment at an end.
Again the captain shouted his commands, and as his men hurried to carry them out he turned to Don Audre.