A Pirate of the Caribbees Page 9

  CHAPTER NINE.

  WE ENCOUNTER AND FIGHT THE GUERRILLA.

  On the morning but one succeeding the capture of the _Dolores_,--theschooner and her prize then being some two hundred and forty miles tothe westward of Dominica,--a sail was discovered at daybreak some twelvemiles to the southward and westward of us, beating up against the tradewind, close-hauled upon the starboard tack; and a few minutes later shewas made out to be a brigantine. We paid but scant attention to her atfirst, craft of her rig being frequently met with in the Caribbean,trading to and fro between the islands; but when the stranger, almostimmediately after her rig had been identified, tacked to the northward,as though with the intention of getting a closer look at us, I at oncescented an enemy, and, possessing myself of the telescope, forthwithmade my way into the fore crosstrees for the purpose of subjecting herto a rigorous examination, wondering, meanwhile, whether by any adversechance the stranger might eventually turn out to be the notorious pirateMorillo in his equally notorious brigantine the _Guerrilla_. I had nosooner got the craft fairly within the field of the instrument than Idiscovered my conjecture to be correct, a score of trifling details ofrig and equipment becoming instantly recognisable as identical withsimilar peculiarities already noticed by me when I before saw the piratevessel.

  Such is the perversity of blind fortune! Under ordinary circumstancesnothing would have pleased me better than to meet this audacious outlawand his cut-throat crew in a clear sea, and to try conclusions withthem. But now I was hampered with the possession of a valuable prizewhich I was most anxious to take safely into port, while my little forcewas seriously weakened by the withdrawal of the prize crew which I hadbeen obliged to put on board the _Dolores_. It was therefore not whollywithout apprehension that, under these untoward circumstances, Iwitnessed the approach of the formidable brigantine. I would havepreferred to have met her, if possible, upon somewhat more equal terms;but there she was, doubtless bent upon the capture of the _Dolores_, andthere was nothing for it but to prepare for her as warm a reception asit was in our power to give. I therefore descended to the deck and gaveorders to call all hands and clear for action, at the same timesignalling to Christie that the stranger in sight was a pirate, and thathe was to keep out of harm's way during the impending action, keeping onupon his course, and leaving us in the schooner to deal with theintruder.

  Our preparations were soon complete, but none too soon; for, approachingeach other as we were at a good pace, the space between the brigantineand ourselves narrowed very rapidly. Nevertheless there was time, whenall was done, to say a few words to the men; so, as I anticipated thatthe struggle upon which we were about to engage would be a tough one, Icalled them aft and said--

  "My lads, you have all heard of the atrocious pirate Morillo who hauntsthese waters; you have heard something of his doings from those poorfellows belonging to the _Wyvern_ who were picked up by us when we weresearching for the _Althea's_ boats, and you saw for yourselves aspecimen of his handiwork in the blazing hull of the _Kingston Trader_,the unfortunate crew of which ship only too probably perished with her.The scoundrel and his gang of cold-blooded murderers are aboard thatbrigantine; and after what you have heard and seen, I need not tell youwhat is likely to be the fate of any of us, or of those aboard the_Dolores_, should we be so unfortunate as to fall into their hands.They are undoubtedly about to attempt the capture of the Spaniard. Now,it is for _you_ to say whether they shall do so, or whether you willsend them all to the bottom of the sea instead. Which is it to be,men?"

  "Put us alongside of her, Mr Courtenay, sir, and we'll soon show you--and them too--which it's to be," answered one of the men, the restinstantly corroborating the remark by such exclamations as, "Ay, ay;we'll give 'em their gruel, never fear."

  "Well spoke, Tommy; true for you, my son," and so on.

  "Very well," said I, "that is the answer I expected. Now go to yourguns, men; and see that you make every shot tell."

  While clearing for action we had also made sail and shot ahead of the_Dolores_; and within five minutes of the moment when the crew went backto their guns, we were within half a mile of the brigantine, which craftwas then crossing our bows, tearing through the long, low swell like aracing yacht, with a storm of diamond spray flashing up over her weatherbow at every graceful plunge of her into the trough. She was abeautiful vessel, long and low, with enormously taunt, raking masts anda phenomenal spread of canvas--a craft well worth fighting for; and Ithought what a proud day it would be for me if perchance I should befortunate enough to capture and take her triumphantly into Port Royalharbour. She was now well within range, so I sang out to Lindsay, whowas looking after matters on the forecastle, to know whether the nine-pounder pivot gun was ready.

  "All ready, sir, and bearing dead on the brigantine," was the answer.

  "Then heave a shot across the rascal's fore-foot at once," shouted I;"and you, my man, hoist away the ensign at the flash of the gun," Icontinued to the fellow who was standing by the peak signal halliards.

  As the words left my lips there was a ringing report and a smartconcussion; and, springing upon the weather rail, I was just in time tosee the shot neatly strike the water immediately under the brigantine'sfigure-head, the spray from it leaping up and leaving a dark stain uponthe foot of her foretopmast staysail.

  "Well aimed!" exclaimed I exultantly; "if you will all do as well asthat throughout the fight, lads, you will soon give a good account ofher."

  While I was still speaking there came an answering flash from thebrigantine, which at the same moment boldly ran up a _black_ flag at hergaff-end; and ere the report had time to reach us, a nine-pound shotcrashed fair into our bows, raking us fore and aft, and carrying off thetop of our unfortunate helmsman's head as it flew out over our taffrail.The poor fellow sank to the deck all in a heap, without a groan,without a quiver of the body, and I sprang to the wheel just in time tosave the schooner from broaching-to.

  "Anyone hurt there, for'ard?" I shouted; for I saw two or three menstooping as though to help someone.

  "Yes, sir," answered one of the men; "poor Tom Parsons have had hischest tore open, and I doubt it's all over with him!"

  "You must avenge him, then," I shouted back. "Load again, and give ither between wind and water if you can."

  They were already reloading the gun, even as I spoke, and a minute laterthe piece again rang out, the shot striking the brigantine's covering-board fair and square, close to her midship port, and making thesplinters fly in fine style. We were now so close to her that we couldsee that her decks seemed to be full of men, and I thought I heard ashriek as our shot struck. Her reply was almost instantaneous, herwhole starboard broadside being let fly as she shot into the wind instays; and once more the shot--_five_ nine-pounders--came crashing inthrough our bulwarks, filling the air with a perfect storm of splinters,but happily hurting no one but myself. A large jagged splinter struckme in the left shoulder, lacerating the flesh rather badly; but one ofthe men sprang to my assistance and quickly bound it up.

  "Up helm, my man, and let her go off until our starboard broadsidebears," said I to the man who now relieved me at the wheel, adding in ashout to the crew--

  "Stand by your starboard guns, and fire as they come to bear upon her!"

  Bang! bang! bang! Our modest broadside of _three_ six-pounders spokeout almost simultaneously. I did not see the shot strike anywhere, butalmost immediately afterwards down came her maintopmast and the peak ofher mainsail. Her main-masthead had been shot away, and the _Dolores_at least was safe; for the pirates, having lost their after-sail, wouldnow be compelled to make a running fight of it before the wind, whichwould enable Christie to haul his wind and get out of danger. Our menraised a cheer at their lucky shot, and I, determined not to throw awaythe least advantage, gave orders to port the helm and bring the schoonerto the wind on the starboard tack, so getting the weather-gage of thebrigantine. As we rounded-to our antagonist fell off, the two craftthus presenting their larboard br
oadsides to each other; and, both beingready, we fired at precisely the same moment, the report of the twodischarges being so absolutely coincident that I did not know thebrigantine had fired until her shot came smashing in through ourbulwarks, wounding five men and rendering one of our six-poundersuseless by dismounting it. So close were we to each other by this timethat before we could load again the brigantine had passed astern of us,and none of our guns would bear upon her or hers upon us. Her crew weredoing their utmost to keep her close to the wind, but with the peak ofher mainsail down she would not lay any higher than within about eightpoints; and I determined to take the utmost advantage of hercomparatively helpless position while I might, for a lucky shot on herpart might make her case ours at any moment. I therefore signed to thehelmsman to put down his helm, and at the same moment gave the order--

  "Ready about! helm's a-lee!"

  The nimble little schooner spun round upon her heel as smartly as adancing girl, presenting her starboard broadside to the brigantine.

  "Stand by your starboard broadside, and fire as your guns bear!" shoutedI; and as we swept round almost square athwart our antagonist's sternthe six-pounders once more spoke out, one shot striking the stern of herfair amidships and smashing her wheel to pieces, while the other twotook her in the larboard quarter at an angle that must have caused themto traverse _very_ nearly three-quarters of the length of her deckbefore they passed out through her starboard bulwarks.

  The brigantine, no longer under the control of her helm, fell off untilshe was running dead before the wind, when the pirates trimmed theiryards square; and a moment later I saw a number of her hands in the forerigging swarming aloft. The moment that her starboard broadside couldbe brought to bear upon us she fired; and the next moment our bowspritand foretopmast both went, the former, with the flying-jib, towing underthe bows, while the latter dangled to leeward by its rigging, with theroyal towing in the water alongside. Our lads, having by this timereloaded the starboard guns, again fired, hulling the pirate, and then,by my orders, left their guns to clear away the wreck; for, encumberedas we now were, with the jib under the bows and the square canvashanging over the side, the schooner was gradually coming-to, althoughher helm was hard a-weather.

  This ended the fight, for when I next found time to look at thebrigantine she had studding-sail booms rigged out on both sides and herpeople were busy getting the studding-sails upon her, while the straightwake that she was making showed that they had already contrived to rigup some temporary contrivance for steering her. Seeing this, I at oncehove the schooner to, and went to work to repair damages; for, now thatI had had the opportunity to discover the stuff of which Senor Morillowas made, it struck me as by no means improbable that the moment he hadrepaired his damages he would return and attack us afresh.

  Altogether the fight had not lasted longer than some eight or tenminutes at the utmost, but during that short time we had lost two men,killed outright, while six--including myself--were wounded, four of themseverely. Christie, recognising that his duty was to take care of theprize, had hauled his wind when we passed ahead of him, and was nowabout a mile to windward, with his maintopsail to the mast; but when hesaw that the fight was over he filled away and came booming down to us,sweeping close athwart our stern and heaving-to close to leeward of us.As he bore down upon us I saw him in the mizzen rigging, speaking-trumpet in hand; and when he was within hailing distance he hailed toask if he could be of any assistance, adding that one of the passengersprofessed to be a doctor and had chivalrously offered his services,should they be required. This was good news to me indeed, for, being asmall craft, we carried no surgeon, and but for this proffered help ourpoor wounded lads would have been obliged to trust pretty much to chanceand such unskilled help as we could have afforded them among ourselves.I hailed back, expressing my thanks for the offer, and at once sent awaya boat for the medico, not caring that Christie should run the risk ofsending away a boat's crew out of his own scanty company.

  In about ten minutes the boat returned, bringing in her a little,swarthy, burnt-up specimen of a Spaniard, and a most portentous-lookingcase of surgical instruments. But, although by no means handsome, SenorPacheco soon proved himself to be both warm-hearted and skilful,ministering to the wounded with the utmost tenderness and with a touchas light and gentle as a woman's. When he had attended to the others Irequested him to oblige me so far as to bind up my shoulder afresh,which he at once did, informing me at the same time that it was anexceedingly ugly wound, and that I must be particularly careful lestgangrene should supervene, in which case, if my life could be saved atthe expense of my arm, I should have reason to esteem myselfexceptionally fortunate. He remained on board, chatting with me forabout an hour, after he had coopered me up, and very kindly promised tovisit me and his other patients again in the afternoon, if I would senda boat for him: but he declined my invitation to breakfast, upon theplea that he had already taken first breakfast, while it was still tooearly for the second. He was full of polite compliments andcongratulations upon our having beaten off such a desperado as Morillowas known to be, and graphically described the consternation that hadprevailed in the cabins of the _Dolores_ when the brigantine wasidentified as the notorious _Guerrilla_.

  Contrary to my expectations, and greatly to my relief, the pirates didnot return to attack us; and as a measure of precaution,--in case theidea should occur to Morillo later on,--as soon as our damages wererepaired I stood to the northward and westward all that day, shaping afresh course for Morant Point at sunset that evening. The sun went downin a heavy bank of clouds that had been gathering on the western horizonall the afternoon and slowly working up against the wind,--an almostcertain precursor of a thunderstorm,--and as the dusk closed down uponus the wind began to grow steadily lighter, until by the end of thefirst dog-watch the air was so scant as to barely give us steerage-way.The night closed down as dark as a wolf's mouth--so dark, indeed, that,standing at the taffrail, I could only barely, and with the utmostdifficulty, trace the position of the main rigging against the intenseblackness of the sky. As for the _Dolores_, we lost sight of heraltogether, and could only determine her position by the dim, uncertainhaze of light that faintly streamed above her high bulwarks from theskylight of her saloon, or by the momentary gleam of a lantern passingalong her decks and blinking intermittently through her open ports.This intense darkness lasted only about half an hour, however, whensheet-lightning began to flicker softly low down upon the westernhorizon, causing the image of the ship--now some two miles astern ofus--to stand out for an instant like a cunningly wrought model inluminous bronze against the ebony blackness of the sky behind her.

  With the setting-in of the lightning the last faint breathing of thewind died away altogether, leaving us and the Spaniard to box thecompass in the midst of a glassy calm, the sweltering heat of which wasbut partially relieved by the flapping of our big mainsail as theschooner heaved languidly upon the low swell that came creeping downupon us from the north-east. The night seemed preternaturally still,the silence which enveloped us being so profound that the noises of theship--the occasional heavy flap of her canvas, accompanied by a rain-like pattering of reef-points; the creak of the jaws of the mainboom orof the gaff overhead on the mast; the jerk of the mainsheet tauteningout suddenly to the heave of the schooner; the kicking of the rudder,and the gurgling swirl of water about it and along the bends--onlyserved to emphasise while they broke in upon it with an irritatingharshness altogether disproportionate to their volume. So intense wasthe silence _outside_ the ship that one seemed constrained to listenintently for some sound, some startling cry, to come floating across theglassy water to break it; and the suspense and anxiety of waiting,despite one's better judgment, for such a sound, caused the discordantnoises inboard to quickly become acutely distressing. At least such wasmy feeling at the time, a feeling that possibly may have grown out ofthe increasing smart of my wound, which was now giving me _so much_ painthat I had little hope of getting any sleep that ni
ght, especially asthe heat below was absolutely stifling.

  Gradually--so gradually that its approach was scarcely perceptible--thestorm worked its way in our direction, the brighter glimmer andincreasing frequency of the sheet-lightning alone indicating that it wasnearing us, until just about eight bells in the dog-watch the firstfaint mutterings of distant thunder became audible, while the vast pilesof sooty cloud that overhung us seemed momentarily to assume new andmore menacing shapes, as the now almost continuous quivering of thelightning revealed them to us. Anon, low down in the western sky thereflashed out a vivid, sun-bright stream of fire that, distant as it was,lighted up the whole sea from horizon to horizon, tipping the ridges ofthe swell with twisted lines of gold, and transfiguring the distant_Dolores_ into a picture of indescribable, fairy-like beauty, as itbrought sharply into momentary distinctness every sail and spar anddelicate web of rigging tracery. A low, deep rumble of thunderfollowed, which was quickly succeeded by another flash, nearer and moredazzlingly brilliant than the first; and now the storm seemed to gatherapace, the lightning-flashes following each other so rapidly that verysoon the booming rumble of the thunder became continuous, as did theblaze of the sheet-lightning, which was now flickering among the cloudsin half a dozen places at once, bringing out into powerful relief theirtitanic masses, weirdly changing shapes, and varied hues, and convertingthe erstwhile Cimmerian darkness into a quivering, supernatural light,that caused the ocean to glow like molten steel, and revealed everyobject belonging to the ship as distinctly as though it had beenilluminated by a port-fire. So vivid and continuous was the light thatI not only distinctly saw the fin of a shark fully half a mile distant,but was also able to watch his leisurely progress until he had increasedhis distance so greatly as to be no longer distinguishable. Thecontinuous quivering flash of the sheet-lightning among the cloudsafforded, of itself, a superbly magnificent spectacle, but the beauty ofthe display was soon still further increased by a wonderfully rapidcoruscating discharge of fork-lightning between cloud and cloud, asthough the fleecy giants were warring with each other and exchangingbroadsides of jagged, white-hot steel; the thunder that accompanied thedischarge giving forth a fierce crackling sound far more closelyresembling that of an irregular volley of musketry than it did the deep,hollow, booming crash that followed the spark-like stream of fire thatlanced downward from cloud to ocean.

  A few minutes more and the storm was right overhead, with the lightninghissing and flashing all about us, and the thunder crackling andcrashing and booming aloft with a vehement intensity of sound that camenear to being terrifying. The whole atmosphere seemed to be aflame, andthe noise was that of a universe in process of disruption.

  Suddenly the schooner seemed to be enveloped in a vast sheet of flame,at the same instant that an ear-splitting crash of thunder resoundedabout us; there was a violent concussion; and when, a few seconds later,I recovered from the stunning and stupefying effect of that terrificthunderclap, it was to become aware that the foremast was over the side,and the stump of it fiercely ablaze. There was no necessity to pipe allhands, for the watch below now came tumbling up on deck, alarmed at theshock; and in a few minutes we had the buckets passing along.Fortunately we were able to effectively attack the fire before it hadtaken any very firm hold, and a quarter of an hour of hard work saw theflames extinguished; but it was a narrow escape for the schooner and allhands of us. The most serious part of it was the loss of our foremast,which completely disabled us for the moment. We went to work, however,to save the sails, yards, rigging, and so on, attached to the shiveredmast; and before morning we had got a jury-lower-mast on end andsecured, by which time the storm had cleared away, the wind had sprungup again, and the _Dolores_ had borne down and taken us in tow.Fortunately the wind was fair for us, and it held; and, still morefortunately, no enemy hove in sight to take advantage of our crippledcondition. We consequently arrived safely in Fort Royal harbour, in duecourse, on the eighth day after the occurrence of the accident, andforthwith received our full share of congratulations and condolencesfrom all and sundry, from the admiral downward; the congratulations, ofcourse, being upon our good luck in having effected the capture of sovaluable a prize as the _Dolores_, while the condolences were offeredpretty equally upon our having met with the accident, and our havingfailed to capture Morillo and his wonderful brigantine.