A Volunteer with Pike / The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois

by Robert Ames Bennet

Had I been in full possession of my mental faculties, I must surely have noted the similarity of names. Jean Lafitte was not so far from Jean Laffat, and the Siren from La Belle Silène. As it was, I doubt whether at this time the shouting of Lafitte's name in my ear would have stirred the faintest echo of memory.

The following morning, just at the change of the dog watch, the frigate was suddenly roused from its dull, precise routine by the sound of a heavy gun booming down the wind from the westward. Instantly the ship was brought about, to tack to windward, and the order was given to clear for action. The call to quarters was sounded, the marines paraded, and the cannon run out ready for firing, all before we sighted the supposed enemy.

Meantime the boom of the heavy cannon had come rolling down the wind to us at such regular intervals that the men about me swore there could be only one big gun. Before many minutes we distinguished the hoarse, barking roar of many carronades. At the same time we sighted the square topsails of a Spanish merchantman, and, a little later, the gaff-topsail of a sloop.

Soon the word was shouted down from our lookout at the masthead that the ship was running from the sloop, which carried the big gun and was evidently having far the better of the engagement. The flag of the ship now confirmed the opinion that she was a Spanish merchantman. But the strongest of spyglasses were unable to make clear the small flag of the sloop. It was enough, however, for the British captain, that, upon sighting us, the Spaniard flew a signal for help, and veered so as to run down to us. That her crew should thus seek to put their ship in the way of certain capture was considered by the men about me clear proof that the sloop was a pirate.

As I had been left to pull and haul on deck, I was able to witness all the fierce contest of the fight, and the race of the frigate to rescue the assailed Spaniard. Sail after sail was set, and the bellying sheets tautened as flat as the nimble seamen could draw them.

But swiftly as we tacked to windward, and swiftly as the Spaniard slanted down the wind to obtain shelter of us, the unfortunate vessel was already in terrible distress from the relentless attack of her little enemy. With an audacity which amazed the Britons, the sloop stood on, undaunted by our approach, hanging close upon the quarter of her victim.

The fire of the ship was already silenced, while from half a cable's-length the carronades of the sloop belched their missiles into the rigging of the Spaniard with ever-increasing rapidity, and the great gun on the mid-deck sent shot after shot crashing into the bulging hull at the waterline.

Suddenly we saw the mizzenmast of the Spaniard totter. It fell forward and sideways, dragging after it the splintered mainmast. As the ship broached-to, we could see that she was settling down by the stern. Even I, despite the night of ignorance which lay upon me, realized that she was beginning to founder.

Certain of the fate of her victim, the sloop now sheered off. The Belligerent opened fire with the long eighteen-pounder bow-chasers, but the shots fell short of the sloop by fifty yards or more. Within half a minute the sloop had the stupendous audacity to fire her great gun at us. By a rare chance, the ponderous ball struck the starboard shrouds, snapping them like packthread, and hurled on aslant the after deck, to chip a splinter from the mizzenmast and smash a great hole through the roof of the cabin.

Only the quickness with which the frigate was brought up into the wind and the main and mizzen sails blanketed by the foresails saved the main and mizzenmasts from being sprung, if not carried overboard. Never, I fancy, did the crew of a man-of-war have to suffer such a maddening checkmate. They dared not even come about to give the saucy sloop a broadside, but could only bark away with the ineffective bow-chasers. The sloop packed on what was a tremendous spread of canvas for so small a craft, and fled away aslant the wind at a speed that the frigate could not have hoped to equal on the same course, even had the rigging been in perfect trim.