A Pirate of the Caribbees Part 10

"The _Belle Diane_, French privateer. What schooner is that?" came the reply, also in Spanish of the most execrable kind, uttered with an unmistakable French accent.

"His Britannic Majesty's schooner _Tern_, monsieur, to which ship I must request you to surrender, or I shall be under the painful necessity of blowing you out of the water," answered I, firmly persuaded of the policy of rendering oneself as formidable as possible to one's enemy.

But my well-meant endeavour proved to be a signal failure; the enemy was not in this case to be so easily frightened.

"Les Anglais! mille tonneres!" I heard the Frenchman in the brigantine's main rigging exclaim, as he waved his clenched fist in the air. Then he retorted, in what he doubtless believed to be the purest English--

"Vat is dat you say, Monsieur Angleeshman? If I do not surrendaire, you vill blow me out of de vattar? Ha, ha! Sacre! It is _I_, monsieur, who vill blow dat footy leetle schooner of yours into ze sky, if you do not surrendaire yourshelf plus promptement, eh!"

"All right, monsieur; blaze away, then, as soon as you like!" retorted I, in the best attempt at French I could muster. Then, to my own people, who were at quarters--

"Stand by, starboard guns! Wait until she rolls toward us. _Now, fire_!"

Our imposing broadside of three guns rang out at the precise moment when the brigantine rolled heavily toward us, exposing her deck to our fire; and I heard the shot go crashing through her bulwarks to the accompaniment of sundry yells and screams, that told me they had not been altogether ineffective. Almost at the same instant _three_ of her guns replied; but their muzzles were so deeply depressed, and she was just then rolling so heavily toward us, that the shot struck the water between her and ourselves, and we neither saw nor felt any more of them.

Meanwhile, our square canvas being aback, our antagonist swept rapidly ahead of us; seeing which, I filled upon the schooner and bore up under the brigantine's stern, raking with our port broadside as we crossed her stern, immediately hauling my wind and making a half-board across her stern again to regain my position upon her weather quarter. Our starboard guns were by this time reloaded, and we gave her the three of them, double-shotted, as we recrossed her; and the tremendous clatter, with the howls and shrieks that followed this discharge, showed that we had wrought a considerable amount of execution among the Frenchmen.

"There's _something_ gone aboard of him, but what it is I can't make out," exclaimed Lindsay, who was standing close beside me. "Ah!" he continued, "I see what it is now; it is her mainboom that we have shot away. I can see the outer end of it towing overboard. And see, she is paying off; with the loss of their after-sail they can no longer keep their luff!"

It was even as Lindsay had said; we had shot away the brigantine's mainboom, and thus rendered her big, powerful mainsail useless; so that, despite the lee helm that they were giving her, she was gradually falling off, until within a minute or two she was nearly dead before the wind. This placed her almost completely at our mercy, for we were now enabled to sail to and fro athwart her stern, raking her alternately with our port and starboard guns, and with our nine-pounder as well, while she could only reply with two guns which her people had run out through her stern ports. Still, although disabled, she was by no means beaten, her plucky crew keeping up a brisk fire upon us from these two guns until by a lucky broadside we dismounted them both. But even then they would not give in; despite the relentless fire that we continued to pour into them, they contrived after a time to get two more guns into position, with which they renewed their fire upon us as briskly as ever.

This sort of thing, however, could not continue for very long; our fire was so hot and our guns were so well aimed, that we fairly drove the plucky fellows from the only two guns that they could bring to bear upon us, and within a couple of minutes of the cessation of their fire, a lantern was waved aboard the brigantine, and someone hailed that they surrendered, while at the same moment all sheets and halliards were let go and her canvas came down by the run, as a further intimation that they had had enough of it.

Upon this we of course at once ceased firing, and ranged up alongside the prize, hailing her that we would send a boat aboard. Then, for the first time, we discovered that both our large boats were so severely damaged that neither of them would float; whereupon Lindsay offered to board the prize in the dinghy, with two hands, and take possession.

Accordingly, the little c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l of a craft was dropped over the side, and in less than two minutes my chum hailed to say that he was safely aboard, and that the execution wrought by our fire had been terrible, the brigantine having lost nearly half her crew, both the captain and the chief mate being among the killed. He added that the brigantine's long-boat was undamaged, and that he proposed to hoist her out, with the a.s.sistance of the prisoners, and send her to us by the two hands who had manned the dinghy, if we would look out to pick her up in the event of their being unable to bring her alongside. To this I of course agreed; and a quarter of an hour later the boat was safely alongside us, with a prize crew of twelve picked men tumbling themselves and their traps into her.

Meanwhile, what had become of the _Three Sisters_ and the big ship? I looked round for them, and behold! there they both were, about half a mile to windward, and bearing down upon us _in company_!

"Phew!" thought I, "here is a nice business! While we have been playing the game of hammer and tongs down here, the big ship--doubtless manned by a strong prize crew--has run alongside the old brig and taken her!

And yet--can it be so? Christie has eight hands with him, and I believe the fellow would make a stout fight for it before giving in. I cannot understand it; but we shall soon see. If they have captured him we shall have to recapture him, that is all!" Then, turning to the men, who were busy securing the guns and repairing such slight damage as had been inflicted upon our rigging, I said--

"Avast, there, with those guns! Load them again, lads, for we may have to fight once more in a few minutes. Here is the big ship running down upon us, and it looks very much as though she had taken the brig. Fill your topsail, and let draw the headsheets!"

Getting sufficient way upon the schooner, we tacked and stood toward the new-comers, pa.s.sing close under the stern of the ship, with the intention of hailing her. But before I could get the trumpet to my lips, a figure sprang into the ship's mizzen rigging, and Christie's well-known voice hailed--

"_Tern_ ahoy! is Mr Courtenay aboard?"

"Ay, ay," I answered; "I am here, Mr Christie. What are you doing aboard there?"

"Why," answered Christie, "I am in charge, you know. Seeing you busy with the brigantine, I thought I might as well try my luck at the same time; so I managed somehow to put the brig alongside this ship, and-- and--well, _we just took her_!"

"Well done, Mr Christie!" I shouted; but before I could get out another word, my voice was drowned in the roaring cheer that the _Terns_ gave vent to as they heard the news, told in Christie's usual gentle, drawling tones; and by the time that the cheers had died away the two craft had drawn so far apart that further conversation was, for the moment, impossible.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I BECOME THE VICTIM OF A VILLAINOUS OUTRAGE.

Making room, Christie presently hauled to the wind and hove-to; and some ten minutes later he presented himself on board the schooner--brought alongside by the ship's gig, manned by four of the ship's crew--to report his own share in the incidents of the night. From this report I gathered that, like myself, at first he had mistaken the French privateer for Morillo's brigantine, and had also arrived at the conclusion that the ship was a prize of the latter. He had kept a keen watch upon the movements of the schooner until it had become apparent that we intended to attack the supposed pirate, when he at once turned his attention to the ship, with the object of ascertaining whether, with such a phenomenally slow craft as the _Three Sisters_, anything could be done with her. He believed that, with luck, it could, as he felt pretty certain that the attention of the ship's prize crew would be fully occupied in watching the manoeuvres of the brigantine and the schooner; and, trusting to this, he hauled his wind until he had placed the brig in position the merest trifle to windward of the course that the ship was steering, when, taking his chance of having thus far escaped observation, he clewed up and furled everything, afterwards patiently awaiting the development of events.

And now ensued a very curious and amusing thing, it having transpired that the French prize crew of the ship _had_ seen the brig, and had at once jumped to the conclusion that she was a prize to the schooner. The curious behaviour of the _Three Sisters_ had puzzled them not a little at the outset, but when we opened fire upon the brigantine they knew at once that we must be an enemy; and, supposing that the prize crew of the brig--whom they rashly judged to be their own countrymen--had taken advantage of our preoccupation to rise and recapture their vessel, they immediately bore down to their a.s.sistance. This lucky mistake enabled Christie to fall alongside the ship without difficulty, when, laying aside for the nonce his gentle, lady-like demeanour, he led his eight men up the ship's lofty sides and over her high bulwarks on to her deck, where the nine of them laid about them with such good will that, after about a minute's resistance, the astounded Frenchmen were fain to retreat to the forecastle, where, in obedience to Christie's summons, they forthwith flung down their arms and surrendered at discretion.

Then, clapping the hatch over them, and stationing two men with drawn cutla.s.ses by it as a guard, Christie proceeded to liberate the imprisoned crew of the ship,--which he discovered to be the British West Indiaman _Black Prince_, homeward-bound at the time of her capture, two days previously, with an exceedingly valuable general cargo,--and then sent his own men back to the _Three Sisters_, which had all this time been lying alongside, secured to the Indiaman by grapnels. The brig then cast off, and the two craft forthwith bore down upon us to report, the fight between ourselves and the brigantine being by that time over.

By the time that our own and the brigantine's damages had been repaired it was daylight, and we were all ready for making sail once more. But before doing so I caused the whole of the Frenchmen to be removed to the schooner, where they were first put in irons and then clapped safely under hatches; after which I visited first the _Belle Diane_ and then the Indiaman. I must confess I was astonished when I beheld the effect of our fire upon the former; I could scarcely credit that so much damage had been inflicted by our six-pounders in so short time, her stern above the level of the covering-board being absolutely battered to pieces, while the shot had also ploughed up her decks fore and aft in long, scoring gashes, so close together and crossing each other in such a way as showed what a tremendous raking she had received. She began the action with fifty-seven men, all told, out of which eighteen had been killed outright, and the remainder, with one solitary exception, more or less seriously wounded. Looking upon the paths our shot had ploughed along her deck, I was only surprised that any of her people were left alive to tell the tale. In addition to this, five of her twelve guns were dismounted, and her rigging had been a good deal cut up; but this was now of course all knotted and spliced by Lindsay's people. She was a very fine vessel, of three hundred and forty-four tons measurement, oak built, copper fastened, and copper sheathed to the bends, very shallow--drawing only eight feet of water--and very beamy, with most beautiful lines. Her spars looked enormously lofty compared with our own, as I stood on her deck and gazed aloft, and her canvas had evidently been bent new for the voyage. She had only arrived in West Indian waters a week previously, from Brest, and the _Black Prince_ was stated to be her first prize.

Having given the _Diane_ a pretty good overhaul, and satisfied myself that her hull was sound, I gave Lindsay his instructions, and then proceeded on board the _Black Prince_, where I arrived in good time for breakfast, and where I made the acquaintance, not only of her skipper--a fine, grey-headed, sailorly man named Blatchford--but also of her thirty-two pa.s.sengers, eighteen of whom were males, while the remainder were of the gentler s.e.x, the wives and daughters mostly of the male pa.s.sengers. There were no young children among them, fortunately. My appearance seemed to create quite a little flutter of excitement among the petticoats, and also not a little astonishment, apparently; for I overheard one of the matrons remark to another, behind her fan, "Why, he is scarcely more than a _boy_!"

The _Black Prince_ was a n.o.ble ship, of twelve hundred and fifty tons, frigate-built, and only nine years old, splendidly fitted up, and full to the hatches of coffee, tobacco, spices, and other valuables; she also had a reputation for speed, which had induced her skipper to hazard the homeward voyage alone, instead of waiting for convoy. The poor old fellow was of course dreadfully cut up at his misfortune--for, having been in the enemy's hands more than twenty-four hours, she was a recapture in the legal sense of the term, and, as such, we were ent.i.tled to salvage for her. However, unfortunate as was the existing state of affairs, it was of course vastly better than that of a _few_ hours before, and he interrupted himself in his bemoanings to thank me for having rescued him out of the hands of those Philistines, the French privateersmen. I informed him that it would be my duty to take him into Fort Royal, but he received the news with equanimity, explaining that even had I not insisted on it, he should certainly, after his recent experience, have availed himself of my escort to return to Kingston, and there await convoy. I breakfasted with him and his pa.s.sengers, and then, leaving Christie aboard as prize master, returned to the schooner; and we all made sail in company, arriving at Port Royal five days later, without further adventure.

The admiral was, as might be expected, immensely pleased at our appearance with _three_ prizes in company, and still more so when I reported to him the discovery and destruction of Morillo's headquarters.

"You have done well, my boy, wonderfully well; better even than I expected of you," said he, shaking me heartily by the hand. "Go on as you have begun, and I venture to prophesy that it will not be long before I shall feel justified in giving you t'other 'swab,'" pointing, as he spoke, to my single epaulet.

To say that I was delighted at my reception but very feebly expresses the feelings that overwhelmed me as the kind old fellow spoke such generous words of appreciation and encouragement. Of course I knew that I had done well, but I regarded my success as due fully as much to good fortune as to my own efforts, and I was almost overwhelmed with joy at so full and complete a recognition of my efforts. So astonished indeed was I, that I could only stammer something to the effect that our success was due quite as much to the loyalty with which Christie and Lindsay had seconded me, and the gallantry with which the men had stood by me, as it was to my own individual merits.

"That's right, my boy," remarked the admiral; "I am glad to hear you speak like that. No doubt what you say is true, but it does not detract in the least from the value of your own services. I always think the better of an officer who is willing to do full justice to the merits of those who have helped him, and your promotion will not come to you the less quickly for having helped your shipmates to theirs. You have _all_ done well, and I will see to it that you are all adequately rewarded-- Christie and Lindsay by getting their step, and you by getting a somewhat better craft than the little c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l in which you have already done so well. I am of opinion that all you require is opportunity, and, by the Piper, you shall have it."

And the old gentleman kept his word; for when I went aboard the _Tern_ on the following day--I dined and slept at the house of some friends a little way out from Kingston that night--Christie and Lindsay met me with beaming faces and the information that the former had got his step as master, while Lindsay had received an acting order as lieutenant pending his pa.s.sing of the necessary examination. The only drawback to this good news was the intelligence that the man Garcia had mysteriously disappeared during the night, leaving not a trace of his whereabouts behind him.

An hour or two later I went ash.o.r.e and waited upon the admiral at his office, in accordance with instructions received from him on the previous day; and upon being ushered into his presence, he at once began to question me relative to the qualities of the _Diane_. I was able to speak nothing but good of her; for indeed what I had seen of her, during the pa.s.sage to Port Royal, had convinced me that she was really a very fine vessel in every respect, a splendid sea-boat, wonderfully fast, and, I had no doubt, a thoroughly wholesome, comfortable craft in bad weather.

"Just so," commented the admiral, when I had finished singing her praises; "what you have said quite confirms my own opinion of her, which is that, in capable hands, she may be made exceedingly useful.

Moreover, she is more nearly a match for Morillo's brigantine than is the little _Tern_, eh? Well, my lad, I have been thinking matters over, and have made up my mind that she is good enough to purchase into the service; so I will have it seen to at once, and of course I shall give you the command of her. She will want a considerable amount of attention at the hands of the shipwrights after the mauling that you gave her, but you shall supervise everything yourself, and they shall do nothing without your approval; so see to it that they don't spoil her.

I notice that she mounts six sixes of a side. Now I propose to alter that arrangement by putting four long nines in place of those six sixes, with an eighteen-pounder on her forecastle; and with such an armament as that, and a crew to match, you ought to be able to render an exceedingly good account of yourself. What do you think of my idea?"

I replied truthfully that I considered it excellent in every way; and we then launched into a discussion of minor details, with which I need not weary the reader, at the end of which I went aboard the _Tern_ and paid off her crew, preparatory to her being turned over to the shipwrights, along with her prize.

It happened that just about this time there was an exceptionally heavy press of work in the dockyard; for there had been several frigate actions of late, and the resources of the staff were taxed to the utmost to effect the repairs following upon such events and to get the ships ready for sea again in the shortest possible time; with the result that such small fry as the _Diane_ and the _Tern_ were obliged to wait until the heaviest of the work was over and the frigates were again ready for service. It thus happened that, although I contrived to worry the dockyard superintendent into putting a few shipwrights aboard the _Diane_, three weeks pa.s.sed, and still the brigantine was very far from being ready for sea. During this time I made my headquarters at "Mammy"

Wilkinson's hotel in Kingston,--that being the hotel especially affected by navy men,--although I was seldom there, the planters and big-wigs of the island generally proving wonderfully hospitable, and literally overwhelming me with invitations to take up my abode with them. But about the time that I have mentioned it happened that certain alterations were being effected aboard the brigantine, which I was especially anxious to have carried out according to my own ideas; I therefore spent the whole of the day, for several days in succession, at the dockyard, going up to Kingston at night, and sleeping at the hotel.

It was during this interval that, one night about ten o'clock, a negro presented himself at the hotel, inquiring for me; and upon my making my appearance in the entrance-hall, the fellow--a full-blooded African, dressed very neatly in a white shirt and white duck trousers, both scrupulously clean, for a wonder--approached me, and, ducking his head respectfully, inquired--

"You Ma.s.sa Courtenay, sar, cap'n ob de man-o'-war schoonah _Tern_?"

"Well, yes," I replied, "my name is Courtenay, and I commanded the _Tern_ up to the time of her being paid off; so I suppose I may fairly a.s.sume that I am the individual you have been inquiring for. What is it you want with me?"

"You know a genterman, nam'd Lindsay, sar?" asked the negro, instead of replying to my question.

"Certainly I do," answered I; "what of him?"

"Why, sar, he hab got into a lilly sc.r.a.pe down on de wharf, and de perlice hab put him into de lock-up. Dey don' beliebe dat he am man-o'- war bucra, and he say, 'Will you be so good as to step down dere an'

identerfy him an' bail him out?'"

"Lindsay got into a sc.r.a.pe?" repeated I incredulously. "I cannot believe it! What has he been doing?"

"Dat I cannot say, sar," answered the black; "I only know dat a perliceman come out ob de door ob de lock-up as I was pa.s.sin' by, and asked me if I wanted to earn fibe shillin'; and when I say 'yes,' he take me into de lock-up and interdooce me to young bucra, who say him name am Lindsay, and dat if I will take a message to you he will gib me fibe shillin' when I come back wid you."

"It is very extraordinary," I muttered; "I cannot understand it! But I will go with you, of course. Wait a moment until I fetch my cap."