"She'll be within hail inside of five minutes," they said at last. "We've signalled her now, and she doesn't pay us any attention. It looks bad. Her lookouts haven't gone blind."
Not at all. Captain Avery was anything but shortsighted. His glass had recently informed him that a huge hulk of some sort, only the topsails of which had been seen at first, was steadily drifting nearer.
"Answer no hail!" he had ordered. "We must board her without firing a gun."
Not for firing, therefore, but for show only, the pivot-gun threw off its tarpaulin disguise, and the broadside sixes ran their threatening brass noses out at the port-holes, while the British flag came down and the stars and stripes went up.
"Heave to, or I'll sink you!" was the first hail of Captain Avery. "What ship's that?"
"Sinclair, Bermuda, Captain Keller. Cargo and passengers. We surrender!" came quickly back. "We are half disabled now. Short-handed."
"All right," said the captain. "We won't hurt you. We'll grapple and board."
The Sinclair was more than twice the size of the Noank. She carried a few good-looking guns, too. The grappling irons were thrown; the two hulls came together; the American boarders poured over her bulwarks, pike and cutlass in hand, ready for a fight. All they saw there to meet them, however, was not more than a score of sailors, of all sorts, and a mob of passengers, aft. Some of these were weeping and clinging to each other as if they had seen a pack of wolves coming.
"I'm Captain Keller," said the nearest of the Englishmen. "You're too many for us. We couldn't even man the guns. Five men on the sick list."
He seemed intensely mortified at his inability to show fight, and he instantly added:—