“Present! fire!” cried Mr Adrian.
Once more man after man went down dead or wounded, and the deck was strewn with bodies. A heavy sea at the moment broke over the quarter, sweeping the deck and clashing living and dead in a heap into the lee-scuppers. A few stood still, eyeing dubiously first one another, then the quarter-deck, then the waves as they broke across the waist.
“Reload! Mark your men!” cried Mr Adrian again, with a curl of his lips.
The mutineers heard the command, and dropping their weapons, retreated in a panic to the hatchways.
“Fire!” said Mr Adrian; “and after them, some of you, and make fast the hatches.”
The first order was not obeyed. It had been bad enough, in defence of the ship, to fire on one’s own shipmates, but to fire on their backs was too much; and Lieutenant Adrian probably understood as much when he saw that we all preferred his second order to his first.
It was a short business making good the hatchways, after first driving below the few stragglers who lingered above board. Then we had leisure to take stock of the execution our volleys had effected. Eleven men, including Callan and two of his fellow ringleaders, were dead. Eight more were mortally wounded, and thirty-eight lay hurt, some badly, some slightly. We lost no time in throwing the dead overboard, and carrying those most in need of succour out of the reach of the waves. Tarpaulins were spread for the rest till a place could be found for them in some of the after-cabins.
The doctor (who reported that Captain Swift had breathed his last while the engagement was at its height) did what he could to dress the wounds of the sufferers, and impressed the services of one or two of the handiest of the men present as assistants.
Just then, however, with the gale threatening every moment to snap the masts, it was even more important to get hands aloft to shorten sail. The midshipmen and officers gallantly undertook this difficult task, but not in time to save the main-topgallant mast, which fell with a crash, carrying away the purser and the boatswain’s mate, and fouling the rigging below with its wreck. No sooner was this cleared, and the top courses taken in, than the man who had been for some moments conning the strange sails on the horizon reported,—
“Two Dutchmen, sir, thirty-six guns a-piece, bearing this way.”