Asiatic Breezes Part 17

"I believe I did the best I could. The shallow water at the south of us prevented me from running away in that direction, as I tried to do, and the only avenue out of the difficulty was directly ahead of the Maud."

"I understand it all perfectly, for I could measure the situation from the upper deck," said Louis.

"I headed the steamer to the east. Then came that shot through the galley. The Fatime was coming about in order to bring her port gun to bear upon us. She could not well avoid hitting us if she had tried to do so, we were so near. If the ball went through the engine or the boiler, both of which were exposed to the fire, that would have been the last of us. Half of us might have been scalded to death; or, at the best, Mazagan might have knocked the Maud all to pieces at his leisure after he had disabled the vessel."

"Precisely so."

"I might have hoisted a white rag, and surrendered, permitting the pirate to take you on board his steamer; but if I had done that, I could never have held up my head again, and I could never have looked my recording angel in the face to tell him I had let the pirate take Louis Belgrave out of the Maud."

"It would not have ended in just the way you have pictured it, Captain Scott," added Louis with a smile. "I think enough of the ship's company would have stood by me to enable me to make an effectual resistance, and Mazagan might have got a bullet through his left breast instead of through his right shoulder."

"Every fellow would have stood by you, my dear fellow, as long as you stood yourself," replied the captain. "If Mazagan had disabled the Maud, he could have retired out of reach of our rifle b.a.l.l.s, and knocked a hole through the vessel with his guns, and sunk her. Then he would have had nothing to do but to pick up his millionaire, and ransom him with double the sum he demanded in Cairo."

"Perhaps you are right, Captain Scott; but I think we need not discuss what might have been. We know what is; and this is the problem with which we have to deal."

"Bluntly, Louis, I desire to ask you whether you approve or disapprove what I have done as the captain of the Maud?" continued Scott rather nervously for him.

"I wholly and heartily approve of what you have done!" protested Louis with emphatic earnestness, and without an instant's hesitation.

"My dear Louis, give me your hand!" exclaimed Scott, springing to his feet; they clasped hands in front of the wheel, and the captain seemed disposed to extend it to an embrace. "You have removed all my doubts and anxiety by what you said and the manner in which you said it. If you approve my action, I believe the commander will do the same."

"While I do not accept your view of what might have followed if you had done otherwise, I believe you did the best thing that could be done. If the end had not come just as you say, it would have amounted to the same thing. Let us leave the subject now, and come back to the question you asked me when I came in. What shall be done next?" said Louis.

"I don't think we can do anything but wait here till the Guardian-Mother comes. If we go to sea, she will not know where to find us," replied Captain Scott. "What do you think of it, Louis?"

"I am decidedly opposed to remaining where we are. Though you and I may agree that what has been done is all right, the officers of the Turkish government in authority on this island may not be of that opinion. There is no town, or anything like one, in sight, and I have not been able to make out even a single house or habitation of any kind."

"It is an exceedingly rough-looking country on sh.o.r.e. There are nothing but mountains and forests to be seen. The nearest town put down on the chart is more than ten miles distant, though there may be a village or houses behind those hills on the sh.o.r.e to the south of us. If any of the inhabitants had heard the three shots fired by the pirate, they would have shown themselves before this time."

"But I think we had better be farther from the island. When the Guardian-Mother comes, she must take the same course which we followed yesterday," persisted Louis. "I quite agree with you that we must remain in this vicinity. It is almost as calm outside the bay as it is inside.

How is the water off the cape?"

"There are eight fathoms half a mile from the point. I think you are right, on the whole, Louis; for we don't care to meet any Turkish officers of any kind," replied the captain, as he rang the gong to go ahead.

The sound of the bell brought all hands except Morris, who had volunteered to stay with the patient in the cabin, to the forecastle.

Pitts had gone to the galley to ascertain the condition of his wares after the pa.s.sage of a twelve-pound shot through his quarters. The stove had not been struck, but it had knocked about everything else into the utmost confusion. He was arranging things as well as he could; for it was now five o'clock in the afternoon, and time to think of getting supper.

"How is your patient, Pitts?" asked Louis, coming to the door.

"He is doing well enough, though he has a good deal of pain. I suppose the ball is still in his shoulder, and he will not be much better till that is removed, Mr. Belgrave," replied the cook. "We are under way again, sir."

"We are running out to the cape to wait for the Guardian-Mother,"

returned Louis, as he joined the others on the forecastle.

The two boats from the wreck had made a landing on a point near the conic rock on the ledge. The course of the Maud took her within half a mile of them; for she pa.s.sed over the outer extremity of the ledge.

"They are making signals to us," said Felix to the captain. "There goes a white cloth on a pole."

A little later a boat put off pulled by four men, with another in the stern sheets. The captain rang to stop the screw; for he was curious to know what the men wanted.

"Let the boat come alongside," said he.

There was not force enough to do any mischief if the Moors had been so disposed. Don was sent for to do the talking; but the first person Louis saw was Jules Ulbach, who had been Mazagan's a.s.sistant in his operations. Louis talked with him in French. His first statement was that his employer had been shot in the shoulder, and had gone down with the wreck. The spokesman for the steamer did not deem it advisable to contradict this statement.

Then Ulbach begged for a pa.s.sage to some port from which he could return to Paris. A few words pa.s.sed between the captain and Louis, and the request was peremptorily refused. The Frenchman begged hard, declaring that the island was a desolate place, and he should starve there. The men had come to beg some provisions, as they had not a morsel to eat.

"Give them all they want to eat," replied the captain when the request was translated to him.

"The Guardian-Mother!" suddenly shouted Felix at the top of his lungs.

All hands gave three rousing cheers, to the astonishment of the Frenchman and those in the boat. Pitts came out of the galley to ascertain the cause of the demonstration, and he made out for himself the bow of the ship pa.s.sing the point of the cape. A plentiful supply of food was put into the boat, and the Maud continued on her course.

CHAPTER XV

THE ARRIVAL OF THE GUARDIAN-MOTHER

The appearance of the Guardian-Mother in the offing was hailed with rejoicing by every person belonging to the Maud. Off on an independent cruise as the boys were, and "when the cat's away the mice will play,"

it would not have been strange if they had enjoyed their freedom from the restraining presence and influence of the commander; but no such feeling pervaded the minds of the ship's company.

Not even the captain of the little steamer had felt that he was in possession of any unusual liberty. It might have been otherwise with him and his companions if the threatening presence of the Fatime had not been a serious damper upon them. As it was, the voyage to Cyprus had resulted in a tremendous event.

Whatever Scott had said to Louis Belgrave about knocking a hole in the side of the pirate, as Captain Ringgold had done with the Viking, had no bearing whatever upon what he had actually done when the critical moment had come in the encounter. He declared rather lightly that he would proceed to this extremity if he were the captain of the larger steamer; but it had not occurred to him to do such a reckless deed with the little Maud, when his opponent was a steamer of four hundred tons.

Captain Scott and his companions had expected to see the Guardian-Mother long before she appeared. The commander might naturally have felt some anxiety in regard to the safety of the Maud in the gale of the night before, though it had not been a very severe storm; and Scott and Louis supposed he would make all possible haste to be near her. Instead of that, she was fully ten hours behind her, even with her superior speed and more weatherly ability. They could not explain her delay, and it was useless to attempt to do so.

"What do you suppose will become of those fellows from the pirate, Captain Scott?" asked Louis, looking at the people from the Fatime on the sh.o.r.e.

"I haven't the least idea, and I don't think I shall trouble my head with the question," replied the captain. "We have given them provisions enough to keep them alive for several days, and they can make their way to some town. I don't consider their condition as at all desperate. If Captain Ringgold thinks it necessary, he will do whatever he deems advisable."

"I don't consider those men as pirates, or hold them responsible for the acts of Captain Mazagan," added Louis. "They had to obey his orders, and I doubt if they had any knowledge of his intentions."

"I did not see a single person, as well as I could make them out in the boats, who looked like an Englishman. Probably the foreign engineers retired from the Pacha's service when Mazagan took command of her. They knew the meaning of piracy. At any rate, the steamer was not officered nor manned as she was when we saw her at Gibraltar. Don says her cabin was magnificently furnished, as he had seen through the open door, for he had never been into it. But he is certain that she is an old steamer, built for a steam-yacht, but sold by her owner at a big price when she became altogether behind the times."

"She could not have been very strongly built, or the Maud would not have knocked a hole in her so easily," said Louis.

"It has been repeated over and over again that the Maud was constructed of extra strength when she was built. Who was that man of whom she was purchased?"

"Giles Chickworth, a Scotchman," replied Louis, as he recalled the character.

"He declared that she was the strongest little vessel of her size that ever was built. Don examined the inside of her bow immediately after the blow was struck, and I have done so since. She has not started a plate or a bolt. But then we had all the advantage. We struck the pirate fairly on the broadside with the part of our craft where she is the strongest, and where there could be no give or spring. It does not seem so strange to me as I think it over."

"Pitts," called the captain a little later, while they were still watching the approach of the ship, "how is your patient?"

"About the same, sir; I don't see any change in him," replied the cook.

"But he will have the doctor to-night, and that will put him in the way of getting well."