“I will. I am distressed beyond measure at having led you and your excellent friends, Wagtail and Gelid, into this danger; but I could not help it, and I have satisfied my conscience on that point; so I have only to entreat that you will stay below, and not unnecessarily expose yourselves. And if I should fall—may I take this liberty, my dear sir,” and I involuntarily took his hand,—“if I should fall, and I doubt if I shall ever see the sun set again, as we are fearfully overmatched” Bang struck in.
“Why, if our friend be too big—why not be off then? Pull foot, man, eh?—Havannah under your lee?”
“A thousand reasons against it, my dear sir. I am a young man and a young officer, my character is to make in the service—No, no, it is impossible—an older and more tried hand might have bore up, but I must fight it out. If any stray shot carries me off, my dear sir, will you take”—Mary, I would have said, but I could not pronounce her name for the soul of me—“will you take charge of her miniature, and say I died as I have”—a choking lump rose in my throat, and I could not proceed for a second; “and will you send my writing desk to my poor mother, there are letters in”—the lump grew bigger, the hot tears streamed from my eyes in torrents. I trembled like an aspen leaf, and grasping my excellent friend’s hand more firmly, I sunk down on my knees in a passion of tears, and wept like a woman, and fervently prayed to that great God, in whose almighty hand I stood, that I might that day do my duty as an English seaman. Bang knelt by me. Presently the passion was quelled. I rose, and so did he.
“Before you, my dear sir, I am not ashamed to have....”
“Don’t mention it my good boy—don’t mention it; neither of us, as the old general said, will fight a bit the worse.”
I looked at him. “Do you then mean to fight?” said I.
“To be sure I do—why not? I have no wife,”—he did not say he had no children—“Fight? To be sure I do.”
“Another gun, sir,” said Tailtackle, through the open skylight. Now all was bustle, and we hastened on deck. Our antagonist was a large brig, three hundred tons at the least, a long low vessel, painted black, out and in, and her sides round as an apple, with immensely square yards. She was apparently full of men. The sun was getting low, and she was coming down fast on us, on the verge of the dark blue water of the sea breeze. I could make out ten ports and nine guns of a side. I inwardly prayed they might not be long ones, but I was not a little startled to see through the glass that there were crowds of naked negroes at quarters, and on the forecastle and poop. That she was a contraband Guineaman, I had already made up my mind to believe; and that she had some fifty hands of a crew, I also considered likely; but that her captain should have resorted to such a perilous measure, perilous to themselves as well as to us, as arming the captive slaves, was quite unexpected, and not a little alarming, as it evinced his determination to make the most desperate resistance.
Tailtackle was standing beside me at this time, with his jacket off, his cutlass girded on his thigh, and the belt drawn very tight. All the rest of the crew were armed in a similar fashion; the small-arm-men with muskets in their hands, and the rest at quarters at the guns; while the pikes were cast loose from the spars round which they had been stopped, with tubs of wadding, and boxes of grape, all ready ranged, and every thing clear for action.
“Mr Tailtackle” said I, “you are gunner here, and should be in the magazine. Cast off that cutlass; it is not your province to lead the boarders.” The poor fellow blushed, having, in the excitement of the moment, forgotten that he was any thing more than captain of the Firebrand’s maintop.