“He means business sure enough this time,” muttered Haley. “He’s given him the speed bell. He’s coming on the run.”
The words were hardly uttered when the steamer rushed forth into view from the fog. She was, indeed, coming on at full speed, without firing a gun. Not until she was almost upon them did the bug-eye captains realize what was intended. They had sent a volley at her, to which she paid no heed, but was coming silently and swiftly on.
Gathering speed as she came, the smoke pouring in black clouds from her funnel, the steamer rushed directly at the nearest bug-eye which lay broadside in her path.
“Get back! Jump, boys! The rascal’s going to ram us!” shouted Haley, darting back across the decks to his own vessel.
The crews scattered, and the deck of the bug-eye was cleared. They were not a minute too soon. On came the steamer, tearing through the fog, with the sparks flying from its stack, lighting up the black smoke. There was a crash that could be heard far ashore as its iron bow splintered the side of the bug-eye, buried itself in the yielding planks and cut the craft half in two.
The bug-eye reeled under the shock and groaned as if in mortal agony. The steamer’s bell jangled twice and the craft backed away, leaving a great hole through which the water poured in a torrent. Another bell, and the steamer was going astern at full speed. Some distance away she reversed again, and once more came on. Into the same gap she steered; her iron bow once more rent and tore the planking asunder. Again she backed away.
The vessel, rapidly filling, broke from the lashings that held it to its companion and sank to the bottom of the river.
Thrown into the utmost confusion and dismay at this unexpected turn of affairs, the captains now thought only of safety in flight. The seamen of the foundered vessel scattered through the three remaining ones; there was a frantic rush to lashings and halyards; knives were drawn and lashings cut when that was easier and quicker. Sails were run up and orders shouted hoarsely amid the confusion. The two anchors were slipped, and left. There was no time to get them aboard.
There seemed to be no escape, however, for at least one other of the bug-eyes—the one that lay nearest the steamer. The latter craft was even now manœuvring to reach a point from which to ram the bug-eye, only the sunken vessel that lay between preventing her from repeating her success at once. Tom Noyes, in command of the imperiled vessel, was driving his men to their utmost to get sail on before he should be cut down.
But for the fog he would have had little chance. The steamer worked cautiously out into the river and turned, heading for Tom Noyes’s bug-eye just as she began slowly to make headway, under foresail and jib. The steamer gave the signal to go ahead, slowly, then another for full speed. The bug-eye was standing slowly in toward the bank, endeavouring to put the wreck once more between itself and its foe.