“He is in league with the old one, Paul,” said I; “howsoever, you must be nabbed, for you see the ship is forereaching on you, and you can’t go on t’other tack, surely, with these pretty eyelet holes between wind and water on the weather side there? Your captain is mad why will you, then, and all these poor fellows, go down, because he dare not surrender, for some good deed of his own, eh?”
The roar of the cannon and noise of the musketry made it necessary for me to raise my voice here, which the small scuttle, like Dionysius’s ear, conveyed unexpectedly to my friend, the captain, on deck.
“Hand me up my pistols, Paul.”
It had struck me before, and I was now certain, that from the time he had become so intensely excited as he was now, he spoke with a pure English accent, without the smallest dash of Yankeeism.
“So, so; I see—no wonder you won’t strike, you renegade,” cried I.
“You have tampered with my crew, sir, and abused me,” he announced, in a stem, slow tone, much more alarming than his former fierceness, “so take that, to quiet you;” and deuce take me if he did not, the moment he received the pistols from his mate, fire slap at me, the ball piercing the large muscle of my neck on the right side, missing the artery by the merest accident. Thinking I was done for, I covered my face with my hands, and commanded myself to God, with all the resignation that could be expected from a poor young fellow in my grievous circumstances, expecting to be cut off in the prima vera of his days, and to part for ever from—. Poo, that there line is not my forte. However, finding the haemorrhage by no means great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the captain’s rather strong hint to be still, and lay quiet, until a 32-pound shot struck us bang on the quarter. The subdued force with which it came, showed that we were widening our distance, for it did not drive through and through with a crash, but lodged in a timber; nevertheless it started one of the planks across which Paul and I lay, and pitched us both with extreme violence bodily into the run amongst the men, three of them lying amongst the ballast, which was covered with blood, two badly wounded, and one dead. I came off with some slight bruises, however; not so the poor mate. He had been nearest the end or but that was started, which thereby struck him so forcibly, that it fractured his spine, and dashed him amongst his shipmates, shrieking piercingly in his great agony, and clutching whatever he could grasp with his hands, and tearing whatever he could reach with his teeth, while his limbs below his waist were dead and paralysed.
“Oh, Christ! water, water,” he cried, “water, for the love of God, water!” The crew did all they could; but his torments increased—the blood began to flow from his mouth—his hands became clay—cold and pulseless—his features sharp, blue, and death—like—his respiration difficult—the choking death—rattle succeeded, and in ten minutes he was dead.
This was the last shot that told—every report became more and more faint, and the musketry soon ceased altogether.
The breeze had taken off, and the Wave, resuming her superiority in light winds, had escaped.