The movement drew the attention of the French boats towards us, and in another minute all four were steering courses which would give them every prospect of cutting us off. We were all armed, but it would have been madness to attempt to beat off so overwhelming a force. We had to trust alone to the fleetness of our heels. We might have a prospect of distancing the two boats which had gone up the bay, and which were on our larboard-hand, but we must inevitably run the gauntlet between the other two. The question was, whether we could pass through them before they closed in on us. We made the strong ash sticks bend again as we sent the boat flying through the bubbling water. We sung out in our eagerness, encouraging each other. Every moment the space between the two boats was narrowing. We did not give in though. The Frenchmen now saw that there was a chance of our escaping, and began firing. The bullets flew thickly about our heads. Several hit the gunwale of the boat, but none of us were hurt. Their firing rather encouraged us to persevere, in the hope of escaping.
At last I felt a severe blow on my arm, and involuntarily dropped my oar. A bullet had struck it. Still, I was sure it was not broken; so I took my handkerchief off my neck, and bound it up. I seized my oar, and pulled on. “Oh, the blackguards! sure if they’d give us a fair start, and not be sending their dirty bullets at us, we’d be after bating them entirely, now!” sung out an Irishman, who pulled the bow-oar. Many people would, under the circumstances we were placed in, have given up before this; but Mr Ronald still hoped that we might dodge our enemies, and escape. The boats were not a hundred yards on either side of us. They gave way with a will. So did we. Still we might slip between them. If we did, we should have a good start; and pulling fast, as we could do, we might escape, should they not continue firing at us; but how could we expect them to be so lenient? On they came; narrow, indeed, grew the space between them. We dashed on. With a cry of dismay, we saw that our efforts were of no avail! With such force did they come on, that they literally almost cut our boat in two; and as she sunk between them, we had to jump out—some into one boat, some into the other—to save ourselves from drowning, and to find ourselves prisoners.
How the Frenchmen did jabber away, and ask us all sorts of questions, none of which we could answer, from not being able to muster a word of French amongst us. The other boats came up, and then there was still more jabbering; and then the Frenchmen made us all get into one boat, and pulled with us towards a point of land on the east side of the bay. The boat soon reached a small, rough pier, and then two of the men, jumping on shore, ran off towards the town, which stood a little way off from us. We sat, meantime, wondering what was to be our fate.
Shortly afterwards the tramp of feet was heard, and six or eight soldiers, or militiamen, or gendarmes, appeared, and halted near us. The officer of the boat then had a talk with them, and committed us to their charge. I have no doubt he told them to take good care that we did not run away. The boat, we concluded, had to row watch, and could not remain long absent from her post. The soldiers, before receiving us, grounded arms; shoved their ramrods down their muskets, to show us that they were loaded; examined the primings in the pans, and then, presenting their bayonets at our backs, in most unpleasant proximity, ordered us to advance. Our cutlasses had been taken away, and, of course, the muskets had gone down with the gig; but both Mr Ronald and Peter had their pistols stuck in their belts, inside their great-coats, so the Frenchmen did not discover them. We did not wish our first captors good-bye, nor exchange a word with each other, but, seeing there was no help for it, slowly stumbled on over the uneven ground ahead of our guards. I hoped that they would keep their footing better than we did; for, if not, some of us would stand a great chance of being run through with their bayonets. Had we not been unarmed, and aware that the boat was within hail, I don’t think we should have allowed ourselves to have been carried along as prisoners.
However, our walk was soon at an end, and we reached the tower, which stood a short distance along-shore from where we landed, and not three hundred yards from the beach. It appeared to be in a very tumble-down ruinous condition, as we inspected it from the outside. We concluded that we should have to wait here till the following morning, before being marched off to prison. Whether the tower had been built for a fort, or only a mill, or a look-out place, it was difficult to discover in the scant light we had. There was a small arched door before us, with some stone winding-steps leading up from it. The sergeant in command of the party pointed to it, and some of the men gave us a gentle prick with the end of their bayonets, singing out, at the same time, some words which we guessed to be a command to go up there.
“Let me go first, sir,” exclaimed Peter Poplar, springing through the door. “There may be some trap in the way, and it’s hard that you should have to fall down that, at all events.”
When we were all in, the soldiers followed, making us go winding-up till we reached a chamber at the top of the building. The French soldiers saw us all in, and then shoving to the door, they shut it with a loud bang; but as there was no sound of bolts or bars, we guessed that there were none to the door.
The light of the moon shone directly in through a loop-holed slip of a window, and we saw some billets of wood, and a small cask or two, and a few three-legged stools, with a broken table, and the remains of a bedstead, showing that the place had once been inhabited. Mr Ronald took a seat, and told us to follow his example; so we all sat down, feeling certainly very melancholy at first. We had much reason to be melancholy, for by this time we had heard a good deal about French prisons, and the treatment English prisoners received in them; and we could scarcely fancy a worse fate than to have to spend our future days in one. The lieutenant, however, was not the man to allow himself or others long to indulge in such thoughts. He got up.
“We are in a bad plight, certainly, my lads,” said he; “but we’ll see if we cannot mend it. I have been in a worse plight myself—and so, I daresay, have you—and managed to escape without damage. Perhaps we may do so in this case.”
“Yes, sir,” said Peter; “indeed I have.” And he described how we had escaped from the pirates’ den in Cuba.