Intensified yells all round told that chemical action had not been applied in vain, while the pirates who had gained the bulwarks were met with streams of boiling water in their faces. Heroes may and do face shot and shell coolly without flinching, but no hero ever faced boiling water coolly. The pirates turned simultaneously and received the streams in rear. Light cotton is but a poor defence in such circumstances. They sloped over the sides like eels, and sought refuge in the sea. Blazing with discomfiture and amazement, but not yet dismayed, these ferocious creatures tried the assault a second time. Their fury became greater, so did the numbers that gained a footing on the bulwarks, but not one reached the deck! The battery and the boiler played a part that day which it had never before entered into the brain of the wildest scientist to conceive. The hissing of the hot shower and the vigour of the cold shock were only equalled by the unearthly yelling of the foe, whose miraculous bounds and plunges formed a scene that is altogether indescribable.
The crew of the steamer stood spell-bound, unable to fight even if there had been occasion for so doing. The dark-skinned captain became Indian-red in the face from suppressed laughter.
Suddenly a tremor ran through the steamer, as if she too were unable to restrain her feelings. During the fight—if we may so call it—the engineers had been toiling might and main in the buried depths of their engine-room; the broken parts of the engine had been repaired or refitted, and a throb of life had returned to the machinery. In its first revolution the screw touched the stern of a pirate-boat and turned it upside down. Another boat at the bow was run over. The crews of both swam away like ducks, with their long knives between their teeth. The other boats hauled off.
“Now, captain,” cried Robin Wright, who, during the whole time, had stood as if transfixed, with a cutlass in one hand, a pistol in the other, and his mouth, not to mention his eyes, wide open; “Now, captain, we shall get away without shedding a drop of blood!”
“Yes,” replied the captain, “but not without inflicting punishment. Port your helm—hard a port!”
“Port it is, sir—hard over,” replied the man at the wheel, and away went the steamer with a grand circular sweep which speedily brought her, bow-on, close to the pirate vessel.
“Steady—so!” said the captain, at the same time signalling “full steam” to the engine-room.
The space between the two vessels quickly decreased. The part of the pirate crew which had been left on board saw and understood. With a howl of consternation, every man sprang into the sea. Next moment their vessel was cut almost in two and sent fathoms down into the deep, whence it rose a limp and miserable remnant, flattened out upon the waves.
“Now,” observed the captain, with a pleasant nod, “we’ll leave them to get home the best way they can. A boat voyage in such fine weather in these latitudes will do them good.”
Saying which, he resumed his course, and steamed away into the regions of the far East.