"Sam!" shouted Captain Avery, as his schooner began to change her course. "Port your helm! Keep her well away! Carry her out o' range! Don't let 'em knock a splinter out of us!"
"All right, Lyme," responded Sam. "But let's rake 'em. They're losin' steerage way with all that wreckage draggin'. The redskin has hulled 'em ag'in. Let's cross their bows."
"Go ahead! I'm agreed!" called back the captain. "Not too near, though."
His careful keeping away was to have an important consequence that he did not think of. All was confusion on board the Leon, after those broadsides came. Her crew were frantically striving to cut loose the towing wreckage and bring their craft once more to the wind, while, as fast as Up-na-tan and his fellow-gunners could load and fire, the destruction was increasing.
"What's that?" screeched the pirate captain, in reply to one of his crew. "We are sinking, are we? Boats! To the boats! They shall never take us alive. Boats, and board the Spaniard!"
Capture meant only death without mercy, as all of them knew, and some of the cooler miscreants had already begun to get ready the boats. Of these there were four, and the largest of them had been hanging at the davits, ready for lowering.
"Sam," said Captain Avery, soberly, "not one of those fellows must git away. Mercy to them is cruelty to everybody else. If I spare a pirate, I'll feel as if I was murderin' the next man or woman he puts a knife into."
"That's about the way I feel," said Sam; "but I ain't an executioner."
The Spaniards themselves had been doing something with the guns of the Santa Teresa, such as they were, old-fashioned, clumsily mounted, short-range, light pieces. Only a few of her crew and none of her passengers had been killed or wounded. There had been no report of them made in the general excitement and despondency.
It was almost too soon for any enthusiastic rejoicing, for hardly any one felt sure of deliverance. It was almost as if the wonderful Yankee privateer had fallen from the skies. She and her operations were calling forth tremendous admiration, however, and there was plenty of genuine piety in the fervent thanksgivings that were uttered.