Carette of Sark Part 26

A door opened. I turned my head on the pillow and saw a stout little man looking at me with much interest.

"Ah ha!" he said, with a friendly nod. "That's all right. Come back at last, have you? Narrow squeak you made of it. How long had you been on that spar?"

"I remember--a night and a day--and a night--and the beginning of a day," I said, and my voice sounded harsh and odd to me.

"And nothing to eat or drink?"

"I chewed some seaweed, I think."

"Must have been in excellent condition or you'd never have stood it."

"What ship?"

"_Plinlimmon Castle_, East Indiaman, homeward bound. This is sick-bay.

You're in my charge. Hungry?"

"No," and I felt surprised at myself for not being.

"I should think not," he laughed. "Been dropping soup and brandy into you every chance we got for twenty-four hours past. Head swimmy?"

"Yes," and I tried to raise it, but dropped back onto the pillow.

"Another bit of sleep and you shall tell us all about it." And he went out, and I fell asleep again.

I woke next time to my wits, and could sit up in the bunk without my head going round. The little doctor came in presently with another whom I took to be the captain of the Indiaman. He was elderly and jovial-looking, face like brown leather, with a fringe of white whisker all round it.

In answer to his questions I told him who I was, and where from, and how I came to be on the spar.

"But, by ----!" he swore l.u.s.tily, when I came to the flying flails and the shooting of the drowning men, "that was sheer b.l.o.o.d.y murder!"

"Murder as cruel as ever was done," I said, and told him further of the round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead right before my eyes.

"By ----!" he said again, and more l.u.s.tily than ever. "I hope to G.o.d we don't run across him! Which way did he go, did you say?"

"He went off nor'-east, but his prowling-ground is hereabouts. What guns do you carry, sir?"

"Ten eighteen-pound carronades."

I shook my head. "He could play with you as he did with us, and you could never hit back."

"---- him!" said the old man, and went out much disturbed.

The cheery little doctor chatted with me for a few minutes, and told me that both they and the Indiaman we saw _Red Hand_ looting belonged to the convoy we had seen pa.s.s three days before, but, having sprung some of their upper gear in the storm, they had had to put into Lisbon for repairs, and the rest could not wait for the two lame ducks.

"Think he'll come across us?" he asked anxiously.

"I'll pray G.o.d he doesn't. For I don't see what you can do if he does."

"I'm inclined to think that the best thing would be to let him take what he wants and go. He let the _Mary Jane_ go, you say?"

"She went one way and he the other, when he'd sunk us, and we were told he rarely makes prizes. Just helps himself to the best, like a pirate. He's just a pirate, and nothing else."

"Discretion is sometimes the better part of valour," he said musingly.

"When you can't fight it's no good pretending you can, and this old hooker can't do more than seven knots, and not often that. We've been last dog all the way round. The frigates used to pepper us till they got tired of it;"

and he went out, and I knew what his advice would be if he should be asked for it.

About midday I felt so much myself again--until I got onto my feet, when I learned what forty-eight hours starving on a spar can take out of a man--that I got up and dressed myself, by degrees, in some things I found waiting for me in one of the other bunks.

I hauled myself along a pa.s.sage till I came to a gangway down which the sweet salt air poured like new life, and the first big breath of it set my head spinning again for a moment.

I was hanging on to the handrail when a man came tumbling down in haste.

"It's you," he cried, at sight of me. "Cap'n wants you;" and we went up together, and along the deck to the p.o.o.p, where the captain stood with his officers and a number of ladies and gentlemen. From the look of them they all seemed disturbed and anxious, and they all turned to look at me as if I could help them.

"Carre," said the captain, as I climbed the ladder, "look there! Is that the ---- villain?" and pointed over the starboard quarter.

One look was enough for me. I had stared hard enough at that long black hull three days before, while it thrashed us to death with its whirling devilries. And there was no mistaking the splash of red on his foretopsail.

"It's him, captain;" and the ladies wrung their hands, while the men looked deadly grim, and the captain took a black turn along the deck and came back and stood in front of them.

"It's not in an Englishman's heart to give in without a fight," he said gruffly, "and I'm not in the habit of asking any man's advice about my own business, but from what this man says that ---- villain over yonder can flay us to pieces at his pleasure and we can't touch him;" and he looked at me.

"That is so," I said.

"If we let him have his way the chances are he'll take all he wants and go.

If we fight--My G.o.d, how can we fight? We can't reach him. What would _you_ do now? You've been through it once with him," he turned suddenly on me.

"I'd give five years of my life to have a grip of his throat--"

"And how'd you get there under these conditions, my man?"

"You can't do a thing, captain. And anything you try will only make it worse. He'll send you one of his d.a.m.nable cart-wheels aboard and you'll see the effect. You know how far your carronades will carry."

"Get you below, all of you," he said to his white-faced pa.s.sengers. "No need to get yourselves killed. He'll probably go for our spars, but when shots are flying you can't tell what'll happen. Stop you with me!" he said to me, and the p.o.o.p cleared quickly of all outsiders.

The schooner came on like a racehorse. While yet a great way off a puff of smoke balled out on his fore-deck and disappeared before the report reached us.

"That's blank to tell us to stop. I must have more to justify me than that," said the captain, and held on.

Another belch of white smoke on the schooner, and in a minute our foremast was sliced through at the cap, and the foretopmast, with its great square sails, and their hamper, was banging on the deck, while the jibs and staysail fell into the sea to leeward, and the big ship fell off her course and nosed round towards the wind.

"---- him! That's dismantling shot and no mistake about it. There's nothing else for it. Haul down that flag!" cried the captain; and we were captive to _Red Hand_.

"Sink his ---- boats as he comes aboard, sir!" said one of the mates in a black fury. "He's only a ---- pirate."

"I would, if we'd gain anything by it," said the captain grimly. "But it'd only end in him sinking us. Our pop-guns are out of it;" and they stood there, with curses in their throats--it was a cursing age, you must remember--and faces full of gloomy anger, as helpless against the Frenchman's long-range guns as seagulls on a rock.

The schooner came racing on, and rounded to with a beautiful sweep just out of reach of our guns. Practice had made him perfect. He knew his d.a.m.nable business to the last link in the chain.