“There go all our hopes of wealth,” I thought to myself as I saw the condition of the ship. Strange that that should be the first idea which came into my head. I did not think that the ship would swim many minutes longer. I looked out for the Lowestoffe. She was not far-off, and was lowering her boats, to come to our assistance. Only one chance of saving the ship remained. We must cut away the masts. I gave the necessary order. While some of the crew set to work on the rigging with their knives, I sung out for an axe. One had fallen overboard the day before. Another was not to be found.
“Can no one find an axe?” I sung out, not a little enraged. “Bear a hand, then.”
Rockets was searching in one direction, Nol Grampus in others, with several of the rest of the men, while I felt almost frantic, expecting the ship to fill and go down every instant. The officers were hurrying about for the same object. Were the ship to go down, I felt many lives might be lost, for the frigate’s boats could scarcely save all hands with the passengers. The confusion and noise was increased, it must be remembered, by the roaring of the wind and the dashing of the seas over us.
At last Grampus appeared with a couple of axes. I seized one and sprung to the mainmast. He rushed forward. I had lifted up my gleaming weapon, and was about to give the fatal stroke, when there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the stout old galleon, no longer feeling its pressure, sprang up and righted herself in an instant, sending a dozen of the crew across the deck and all the passengers spinning about in every direction. Except a little of the standing rigging cut, a few shins broken, and a complete ducking received by all the passengers, no damage had occurred. We soon got the lady passengers put to rights, and seated on the hencoops, where they had been taking their breakfast, the coffee-cups picked up, the men restored to their legs, and their cigars re-lighted, and everything in its proper place, while the boats which had been coming to our help returned to their frigate.
“All’s well that ends well,” was Martin’s observation when we again sat down to a fresh supply of coffee, red herrings, and biscuits.
Nothing else occurred till the 5th of December, when one of the Spanish prisoners was found dead in his bed in the gun-room.
On the 8th we made Jamaica, but were beating away under the south-west end of the island, till the 15th, when I carried away my fore-topsail-yard, and had to put into Bluefields Bay to repair the loss.
On the 16th we sailed again with the Lowestoffe. In the evening, as we were pretty close in with the shore, the Lowestoffe signalised that a suspicious schooner was in sight and made sail in chase. Scarcely had we sunk her courses below the horizon when another vessel appeared from under the land, standing towards us. She was also a schooner, and we were not long in making up our minds that she was an enemy’s privateer. I did not fear her though. We loaded and ran out all our guns and prepared for the encounter. I knew that my men would not yield while the galleon kept afloat, and so I did not watch the Lowestoffe’s departure with so much anxiety as I might otherwise have done. Tom Rockets and others were tightening in their waist-bands, fastening handkerchiefs round their heads, feeling the edges of their cutlasses, and making all the other usual preparations for a fight.
The stranger came on boldly towards us. I had no doubt of the character of the schooner, but as she sailed two knots to our one there was no use in attempting to try and escape her. It was not long before she got within gun-shot and exhibited her true character by running up the Spanish ensign and by firing one of her bow-chasers at us. As our guns would not carry so far as hers I let her come on considerably nearer before I returned the compliment. The privateer, thinking that they were going to make an easy victory of us, fired again, but the shot, as had the first, flew wide of us. I saw that my people were impatient to fire in return.
“Hold fast, my lads,” I cried out. “Let her come on a little nearer, and we’ll show her that she has caught a Tartar for once in a way.”