They put off in their smack, and with the skilful fisherman at the helm, stood off and on, tacked and ran before the wind, until they came to a point where they were out of shot and yet near enough to see all that was taking place.
"I can read the names of the sloops," said Park, squinting across at their sterns; "one's called Sea Nymph and t'other the Henry, and they both hail from Charles Town."
Nick chuckled. "That governor of yours," he said to Antony, "didn't lose much time. He's got two sloops of war now for certain, and he means to try a tussle with the rovers." He too squinted at the vessels. "I don't think she's Blackbeard's, howsomever. No, there's her name." And he spelled out the words Royal James.
The two sloops, each mounting eight guns, had swept down on the pirate, evidently planning to catch her in a narrow strait formed by two spits of land. But the pirate ship, undaunted, had sought to sail past the sloops, and by her greater speed to gain the open sea. Then the two sloops bore in close, and before the Royal James knew what she was about she had sailed out of the channel and was stuck fast on a shoal of sand. Then the Henry, too, grounded in shoal water, and some distance further, her mate, the Sea Nymph.
This was a pretty situation, all three ships aground, and only the little fishing-smack able to sail about as she liked. "Lucky we don't draw more'n a couple of feet of water," said Simeon Park, at the helm. "If we only had a gun of our own aboard we could hop about and pepper first one, then t'other."
"And have one good round shot send us to the bottom as easy as a man crushes a pesky mosquito," observed Nick. "No, thankee. If it's all the same to you I'd rather keep out of gun-fire of both sides to this little controversy."
Antony, crouched on the small deck forward, was too busy watching what was going on to consider the likelihood of his boat going aground.
The tide was at the ebb, and there was no likelihood of any of the three fighting-ships getting off the shoals for hours. The Royal James and the Henry had listed the same way, and now lay almost in line with each other, so that the hull of the pirate ship was turned directly toward the Charles Town sloop, while the deck of the latter was in full view of the pirate, and only a pistol-shot away.
"They're more like two forts now than ships," said Nick. "There she goes!"
Antony was yelling. The Henry had opened fire on the pirate ship. But instantly the Royal James returned the fire with a broadside, which, on account of its position, raked the open deck of the Henry.