Steering in his boat, he jumped on shore, followed by the marines and four seamen, while he told Billy to remain in charge of the rest of the crew.
Off the little party dashed, hoping without difficulty to capture some of the pirates. The latter turned and fled, leading their pursuers to a distance from the boat. Tom imprudently was rushing on considerably ahead of his men when a volley fired from among some rocks laid three of their number low. The rest halted to return the fire of their concealed enemy, but, seeing no one, they let fly among the rooks, against which their bullets were flattened, without doing further execution. Before they could re-load a party of desperadoes sprang out, and seizing Tom, dragged him along with them. In vain Tom endeavoured to free himself, expecting every instant to feel the point of a sword, or its edge, at the back of his neck. The survivors of his party charged bravely, hoping to recover him; but another volley wounded two more, and, seeing that they would all be cut off, they retreated towards the boat. They would even now probably have been attacked had not Billy, showing unusual discretion on hearing the firing, landed with the rest of the men, and fired on the advancing pirates. What was his dismay to find that Tom was not among those returning.
“Where is Mr Rogers?” he exclaimed.
“The pirates, sir, have got hold of him,” answered Tim, who had reluctantly returned. “If we are quick about it, and the rest can come with us, we can overtake them, and we will get back Mr Rogers, at all events.”
Billy and the rest of the men could not resist this appeal, and were rushing forward when they came to the three men who had fallen. One was dead, but the other two were still living, though unable to walk. They entreated that they might be carried back to the boat; and Billy, finding that the pirates had disappeared, judged that there would be no use in pursuing them, and he remembered also that he had been directed to remain in the boat.
Notwithstanding, therefore, Nolan’s remark, Billy ordered the men back to the boat. Just at that instant the junk, from which their attention had been diverted, and which had been in flames fore and aft, blew up with a loud explosion, portions of the fragments being scattered far and wide, many falling close to them.
“Shove off!” cried Billy; “not a moment must be lost.”
His crew pulled away after the lieutenant and Desmond, in the hopes that should they have succeeded in taking the two junks, of obtaining their assistance and going in search of Tom. On getting round the point which hid them from sight, Billy discovered the junks, nearly a mile away, both on shore. As his boat got nearer he caught glimpses of the pirates running among the bushes, in the direction, as far as he could judge, of the fort. Both junks had, therefore, been captured. Billy only hoped that the pirates had not attempted the same trick they had played him, by laying trains to their magazines, although he half expected, before he reached the junks, to see them blow up into the air.
In his eagerness to save his other shipmates, he almost forgot poor Tom. “Give way, lads, give way!” he cried. “They will all be sent up like sky-rockets if we don’t warn them in time.”
The seamen made the boat fly over the water, understanding the danger as fully as he did.