“We are about to be boarded, or perhaps we are going to board the enemy,” he answered; “I don’t see why one thing shouldn’t happen as well as the other.”
“I am afraid it is as you first suggested,” said Norah. “Hark to those loud shouts; they are the voices of Frenchmen—they must have boarded us. I hear their feet tramping on deck, and there they come down below. Our people must have been quickly overpowered; what resistance could such a mere handful offer to the numerous crew of the enemy? Oh! our poor father and Owen—can they wish us to remain here? They may be wounded and bleeding to death, and may require our help.”
It was now Gerald’s turn to insist on obeying orders. “Norah, Norah! stay where you are,” he exclaimed. “Should the Frenchmen have boarded us, you might meet them, and we can’t tell how they might behave. If any come here they’ll have to repent their audacity,” he added, placing himself with a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other at the entrance of Norah’s retreat.
“I must fight for you if they come down here—it is my duty, and I’ll do it,” answered Gerald to his sister’s expostulations; for she dreaded lest, by offering resistance, he might induce the enemy to kill him. He, however, would not listen to her entreaties. “At all events, don’t speak, Norah,” he said; “the Frenchmen may hear us and find us out—whereas if we remain quiet we may escape discovery till the boarders have gone back to their own ship and ours is left in charge of a prize crew, and we may be very sure that neither our father nor Owen will be induced to quit the Ouzel Galley without us.”
Norah saw the prudence of this advice. She wisely also put out the lantern, the light from which would very certainly have betrayed their hiding-place.
We must now return on deck. As soon as Norah and Gerald had gone below, the captain addressed the crew and asked whether they would stick by him and assist in making every effort he could devise for escaping. They one and all declared that they were ready to fight to the last to preserve the Ouzel Galley from capture and to escape a French prison.
“Then we’ll make a running fight of it, my lads,” he said. “The enemy has probably much heavier metal and many more men than we have, but our two guns will be of as much service as her twenty if we can keep her as she now is, right astern—and that’s what I intend to do.”
The second mate had narrowly scanned the French ship. “I can tell you what, Captain Tracy,” he said at length, “you haven’t a chance of escaping from her. I know her and her commander well, and not a better or more determined seaman ever walked the deck of a ship. I have reason to be grateful to you for the way I have been treated on board this vessel, and to your first mate for saving my life; and for your own sake I would advise you to haul down your flag at once and surrender—you will probably be far better treated than if you lead the Frenchman a long chase and are taken at last.”
“I am obliged to you for your good intentions in giving the advice you do,” said Captain Tracy, “but my principle is to hold out till the last hope of success has gone—and we haven’t quite arrived at that point yet. If you don’t wish to fight you can go below.”
“You mistake me,” answered the second mate, in a somewhat angry tone, and he walked away. The next instant a puff of smoke was seen to issue from the bows of the French ship, and a shot came flying across the water; but it fell short of the Ouzel Galley.