Grabbing the spokes, I whirled the wheel over, and then plunged down the companionway into the after cabin. I heard a rush of feet on the deck overhead and the sharp cries of Brown, mingled with the hoarse oaths of frantic men. Then I drove full speed against the door of Crojack’s stateroom and crashed into the space within.
That poor, dear girl was—but no matter, there are some parts of every affair that are nobody’s business. In a second I had her in my arms and was leaping up that companionway, while the cries and oaths of the scuffle drew farther aft.
As I cleared the hatchway I saw the quarter-deck free ahead of me, and, giving a yell to Brown to follow, I plunged headlong over the taffrail into the sea. When I reached the surface with the girl in my arms, I turned to look back. I saw Brown hurl his belaying-pin into the crowd that had followed him aft, and as they chased him to the side he leaped over the rail on to the deck-strake. Then, running rapidly along the narrow projection on the vessel’s side, he threw up his hands and took a flying dive astern. When he came to the surface he was over one hundred feet from his pursuers, and the ship was still forging ahead from her headway, although her canvas was all back and everything in a mess aloft.
With a few strokes Brown reached me, and together we held the girl afloat and struck out for the English ship.
Those on board the gunboat had seen something of the fracas, and, as soon as they saw the Arrow luff, they started to get out their boats as fast as willing hands could hoist them.
I swam easily, but I soon found that I was getting very faint, and that my breath seemed to burn like a flame in my throat and chest. I tried to tell Brown that I was going, but I could not utter a word. I remember seeing a boat approaching swiftly, and I remember noticing the even sweep of the oars until they appeared to row over my head and thunder past my ears. The noise was deafening, and my brain felt as if it were splitting with the roar. I put my hand to my head, felt something near it—awoke and found myself lying in a bunk on board of a strange ship. Then a soft hand brushed soothingly over my temples as gently as the breath of the trade-wind. A sweet voice whispered in my ear to lie quiet, and it made me feel so well that, in my upset state, I began to believe that I had at last cruised into the port of missing ships. I soon found, however, that I was not so badly wounded as I had reason to suppose, and that Brown was aboard there with me, his wounded leg doing well in spite of the twitching it received in that last rally.
CHAPTER XXIII.
During the short time I was in the water, a desperate fight was going on aboard the Arrow. Johnson, seeing how matters were turning out, rallied his men for a stand.
Five boats from the man-o’-war, filled with blue-jackets, armed and ready for the fight, drew alongside before the convicts could get the ship out of irons. She lay with her yards aback, and those who worked intelligently had their work undone by those who in their frantic haste worked like maniacs.
The boarders from the first small boat fastened to the mizzen channels, and, as they did so, Johnson dropped a mass of iron weighing two hundred pounds into the boat’s bottom, tearing her open. She filled at once and sank before the men could climb aboard. Benson, though desperately wounded from my knife, managed to get hauled back aboard by willing hands. He joined the crowd aft, and, holding to the taffrail for support, fired a double-barrelled gun with deadly effect into the approaching boats. A sailor fired at him with a rifle, and the bullet tore a hole through his chest, but he staggered back to his place at the rail and fought on. Two of the best, or rather worst, men in the gang used cutlasses with effect upon the men who crowded over the rail in the waist. An officer engaged one of these in single combat and for a short time there was a bit of sword-play. Then a sailor coming in from the starboard side smote the villain over the head with his cutlass butt and stretched him out for further orders.