At length she drew up about fifty yards from our starboard quarter, and even at that short distance they did not scent danger, their eagerness blinding them to the fact that twenty-five closed ports separated them from a death-dealing hail of iron.
I ran back to my station. The word was passed round to fire high and spare the slaves. All along the main deck there were groups of men standing in almost total darkness, waiting at the gun tackles for the signal to run out the guns. The feeble glimmer of the fighting-lanterns shone on the glistening arms and bodies of half-naked seamen, who stood in almost deathlike silence listening to the shouts of their unseen foes.
Suddenly came the order to fire. The ports were triced up, and brilliant sunshine flooded the gundeck. With the creaking of the tackles and the rumbling of the gun-carriage wheels, the muzzles of the iron monsters were run through the ports. There was no need to take aim, for the vessels were almost side by side. The volley that followed shook the Gannet from keel to truck and filled the deck with clouds of smoke.
Back ran the guns with the recoil, sponges and rammers did their work, and again the guns roared--this time in an irregular broadside.
Four times was this repeated, the guns' crews working as calmly as if at practice. How it fared with the pirate we knew not. Occasionally, between the clouds of smoke, we could catch a glimpse of her black sides, crushed and torn by our broadsides. A musket ball came in through an open port and struck a seaman fairly between the eyes. He fell without a sound, and this was the only casualty on the main deck. Seeing he was dead, two seamen dragged him across to the other side and pushed his body through a port. A bucketful of sand was sprinkled on the spot where he fell, and the gun at which he was stationed was run out again.
Suddenly there was a crashing, grinding sound. The master had laid us alongside the corsair.
"Boarders, away!" was the order, and, hastily closing the ports, to prevent our being boarded in turn, the whole of the men below poured on deck, armed with whatever weapon came first to their hands.
The vessels lay side by side, locked in an unyielding embrace. Our ordnance had wrought havoc on the corsair, her huge lateen yards lying athwart her decks, while heaps of dead and dying men encumbered her slippery planks. But the remnant still resisted, and for us the completion of our victory was to be dearly bought. We had already suffered considerably, many men having been slain on our fo'c'sle and poop, and now, headed by our gallant Captain Poynings, we threw ourselves upon the foemen's deck, where we met with a desperate resistance. The corsairs knew that surrender meant an ignominious death, and fought with the courage of despair, calling on Allah and Mohammed as they slew or were slain.
Inch by inch they were driven back, pistolled or cut down or thrust overboard, till there remained but one Moslem, a tall, wiry villain, armed with pistol and scimitar. Two of our men went down before him, one having his skull cloven by a lightning sweep of the corsair's razorlike blade, the other having his sword arm cut completely through at the wrist. Two more rushed at him; one he shot, the second received the discharged pistol full in the face. With that several men made ready to shoot him down; but our lieutenant called on them to desist, and he himself advanced on the redoubtable Moslem.
The combat was watched with breathless interest, for Geoffrey Weaver was a past master in the art of fencing, having acquired both the French and Italian methods, as well as having seen active service against Spaniards and Turks, and also in the Low Countries. In a measure he had an advantage, wearing his breastplate; yet as the scimitar is rarely used save for cutting, the armour did not serve him as readily as it would have done if he had been pitted against a man armed with a pointed sword.