The Spider had by this time tacked, and stood out to sea again, apparently astonished at the extent of the preparations to receive her. After a brief space, she hove about, and in the very middle and thickest of a squall, accompanied by heavy thunder and vivid lightning, dashed gallantly into the harbour; but just as she came abreast of the battery, she took the ground—she had tailed on the bank, and hung. Her masts in a moment flew forward, and bent as if they would have gone over the bows, the rigging and canvass shaking and flapping convulsively; but the sound spars instantly recovered their upright position, with a violent jerk that made every thing rattle again, like the recoil of two tough yew staves when the bowstrings snap.
"Now, Master Henry, you are in for it," thought I.
This was the signal for the battery to open; but the grape from the Spider soon silenced it. However, the broadside of the schooner beneath me was raking her with terrible effect, I could see; while they were unable to get a single gun to bear. At length, by lightening her aft, her broadside was got round, so as to return the fire; and now the hellish uproar began in earnest. For several minutes the smoke, that rose boiling amongst the trees at the top of the cliff, concealed all below. I could neither see nor hear any thing but the glancing spouts of red flame, and thunder of the cannon; the bright sparkles and sharp rattle of the small arms blending with the yelling and shouting of the combatants: but the clearing away of the next squall made every thing once more comparatively clear. The battery, I perceived, was again manned, and galling the Spider most awfully; but just as I looked, a boat's crew from her stormed it, driving those who manned it along the sand-bank towards where the Midge lay; and then, having spiked the guns, returned on board. The freshening breeze now forced the Spider over the shoal, and she entered the creek. Giving the Midge a broadside in passing, in the hope of disabling her, so as to leave nothing to cope with but the Mosca; but the sting was not to be so easily taken out of the little vixen. Presently the Spider anchored by the stern, within pistol-shot of the schooner, right athwart his bows, and began to blaze away again.
The cheers from her increased, and the shouts of the pirates subsided; but the felucca, which had slipped on being fired at, and warped out between the Spider and the mouth of the cove, now dropped anchor again, with a spring on her cable; and from this vantage ground, began to dash broadside after broadside of round and grape right into her antagonist's stern, enfilading her most fearfully.
I could make nothing out of what was going on all this time on the Spider's deck; for although I now and then caught a glimpse of it, during the moments when the strength of the gale cleared away the smoke, and could dimly discern the turmoil of fighting men, and the usual confusion of a ship's deck during a hot engagement; yet the moment my optics began to individualize, as Jonathan says, the next discharge would whirl its feathery wreaths aloft, and hide every thing again half way up the masts, that stood out like two blasted pines piercing the mountain mists.
Hillo! my eyes deceive me, or DOWN goes the blue ensign on board of the Spider!!! So, fare thee well, Henry de Walden; well I wot, my noble boy, you have not lived to see it—Strike to pirates!—No! no! How could I be such a fool? It is but the peak haulyards that are shot away, and there goes a gallant fellow aloft to reeve or splice them again, amidst a storm of round, and grape, and musket balls. He cannot manage it, nor can the gaff be lowered, for something jams about the throat haulyards, which he struggles in vain to overhaul—then let it stick; for now he slides down the drooping spar, to knot the peak haulyards there. Look how he sways about, as the gaff is violently shaken by the flapping of the loosened sail; for both vangs and brails are gone. Mind you are not jerked overboard, my fine fellow—murder! he drops like lead into the pall of smoke beneath, shot dead by the enemy's marksmen. Another tries it—better luck this time, for he reaches the gaff-end, and there the peak rises slowly but steadily into the air once more, the ensign flashing out of the smoke that had concealed it, like the blue lightning from a thundercloud, and once more streaming gallantly in the wind. Whew! the unfortunate bunting clips into it again to leeward, vanishing like a dark-winged sea-bird dipping into a fogbank—the ensign haulyards are shot away—worse and more of it—down goes the maintopmast next, royal mast, pennant and all; snapped off by a cannon-ball as clean as a fishing-rod—no fun in all this, any how—Well done, my small man—a wee middy, in the very nick, emerges from the sulphureous cloud below, with a red ensign, to replace the blue one, fluttering and flaming around him, as if he were on fire. He clambers up the mainrigging, and seizes the meteor there—seizes! nay, he nails it to the mast. He descends again, and disappears, leaving the flag flaring in the storm from the masthead, as if the latter had been a blazing torch.
I began now seriously to fear that De Walden was getting too much of it between the Midge and the schooner, when I saw fire and thick smoke rise up near me, as if bursting from the afterpart of the latter vessel; and, at the moment, the increasing gale broke the Spider's spring, that a shift of wind had also compelled her to use, to keep her in her station,—so that, from being athwart his hawse, she now swung with her bows slantingly towards her opponent's broadside, and lay thus for some time, again terribly galled by a heavy raking fire, until the men in the Mosca were literally scorched from their guns by the spreading flames.
I could now see that the pirate crew were leaving her; so I slipped down near the edge of the cliff, to have a better view of what was going on beneath, but keeping as much out of the line of fire as possible.
The schooner's hull was by this time enveloped in smoke and waving red flames, and her fire silenced; while the Spider, taking advantage of the lull, was peppering the little Midge, who was returning the compliment manfully; her broadside, from the parting of the warp, being by this time opposed to hers.
The crew of the Mosca now abandoned her in two boats, one of which succeeded in reaching the Midge; while the other made for the shore on the opposite side of the creek.