One of Clive's Heroes Part 25

The Gujarati grunted and hurried away. a.s.sisted by Surendra Nath, who, being his companion on the rowing bench, had perforce dropped his oar, he soon had the prisoners in position. Urging them with terrible threats and fierce imprecations, he forced them to ply their oars with long steady strokes. The way on the gallivat increased. There was not a great distance now to be covered, it was unnecessary to husband their strength, and with still more furious menaces Fuzl Khan got out of the st.u.r.dy Marathas all the energy of which they were capable. The escaped prisoners needed no spur; they were working with might and main, for dear life.

Desmond had to steer by guesswork and such landmarks as were afforded by the lights on sh.o.r.e. He peered anxiously ahead, hoping to see the dim shapes of the three grabs; but this was at present impossible, since they lay between him and the seaward extremity of the fort, where lights had not yet appeared. Looking back he saw a number of torches flitting along the sh.o.r.e; and now two or three dark objects, no doubt boats, were moving from the further side of the jetty towards the gallivats. At the same moment that he caught sight of these he saw at last, rising from the gallivats, the thin tongue of flame hi had so long expected. But now that it had come at last, showing that the work on board had been thorough, he almost regretted it, for it was instantly seen from the sh.o.r.e and greeted by a babel of yells caught up in different parts of the town and fort. As at a signal the torches no longer flickered hither and thither aimlessly, but all took the same direction towards the jetty. The hunt was up!

Glancing round, Desmond suddenly gave the order to cease rowing, and putting the helm hard down just avoided crashing into a dark object ahead. The sweeps grated against the side of what proved to be one of the grabs for which he had been looking. A voice from its deck hailed him.

"Take care! Where are you going? Who are you?"

Desmond called up the serang. He dare not reply himself, lest his accent should betray him.

"Tell him all is well. We have a message from the fort to the _Tremukji_," he said in a whisper.

The serang repeated the words aloud.

"Well, huzur. But what is the meaning of the noise and the torches and the blaze on the sea?"

"Tell him we have no time to waste. Ask him where the _Tremukji_ lies."

The man on the grab replied that she lay outside, a dozen boat's-lengths. Desmond knew that this vessel, which had been launched during his captivity, and in whose construction he had had a humble part, had proved the swiftest in the fleet, although much smaller than the majority of the Pirate's. Once on board her, and beyond reach of the guns of the fort, he might fairly hope to get clear away in spite of his miscellaneous crew. Giving to the Gujarati the order to go ahead, he questioned the serang.

"What is the name of the serang in charge of the _Tremukji_?"

"Pandu, sahib."

"How many men are on board her?"

"Three, sahib."

"Then, when we come alongside and I give the word, you will tell him to come aboard at once; we have a message from the fort for him."

Owing to the trend of the sh.o.r.e, the gallivat had been slowly nearing the walls of the fort, and at this moment could not be more than a hundred and fifty yards distant from them. But for the shouting on sh.o.r.e the noise of the sweeps must by this time have been heard. In the glow of the blazing vessels in mid channel the moving gallivat had almost certainly been seen. Desmond grew more and more anxious.

"Hail the grab," he said to the serang as the vessel loomed up ahead.

"Eo, eo, _Tremukji_!" cried the man.

There came an answering hail. Then the serang hesitated; he was evidently wondering whether even now he might not defy this foreigner who was bearding his terrible master. But his hesitation was short. At a sign from Desmond, Gulam the Biluchi, who had brought the serang forward, applied the point of his knife to the back of the unfortunate man's neck.

"I have a message from Angria Rao," he cried quickly. "Come aboard at once."

The rowers at a word from Fuzl Khan shipped their oars, and the two vessels came together with a sharp thud. The serang in charge of the grab vaulted across the bulwarks and fell into the waiting arms of Fuzl Khan, who squeezed his throat, muttered a few fierce words in his ear, and handed him over to Gulam, who bundled him below. Then, shouting the order to make fast, the Gujarati flung a hawser across to the grab. The two men on board her obeyed without question; but they were still at the work when Desmond and Fuzl Khan, followed by the two Mysoreans, leapt upon them from the deck of the gallivat. There was a short sharp scrimmage; then these guardians of the grab were hauled on to the gallivat and sent to join the rowers on the main deck.

Desmond and his six companions now had fourteen prisoners on their hands, and in ordinary circ.u.mstances the disproportion would have been fatal. But the captives, besides having been deprived of all means of offence, had no exact knowledge of the number of men who had trapped them. Their fears and the darkness had a magnifying effect, and, like Falstaff, they would have sworn that their enemies were ten times as many as they actually were.

So deeply engrossed had Desmond been in the capture of the grab that he had forgotten the one serious danger that threatened to turn the tide of accident, hitherto so favourable, completely against him. He had forgotten the burning gallivats. But now his attention was recalled to them in a very unpleasant and forcible way. There was a deafening report, as it seemed from a few yards' distance, followed immediately by a splash in the water just ahead. The glare of the burning vessels was dimly lighting up almost the whole harbour mouth, and the runaway gallivat, now clearly seen from the fort, had become a target for its guns. The gunners had been specially exercised of late in antic.i.p.ation of an attack from Bombay, and Desmond knew that in his slow-going vessel he could not hope to draw out of range in time to escape a battering.

But his gallivat was among the grabs. At this moment it must be impossible for the gunners to distinguish between the runaway and the loyal vessels. If he could only cause them to hold their fire for a time! Knowing that the Gujarati had a stentorian voice, and that a shout would carry upwards from the water to the parapet, in a flash Desmond saw the possibility of a ruse. He spoke to Fuzl Khan. The man at once turned to the fort, and with the full force of his lungs shouted:

"Comrades, do not fire. We have caught them!"

Answering shouts came from the walls; the words were indistinguishable, but the trick had succeeded, at any rate for the moment. No second shot was at this time fired.

Desmond made full use of this period of grace. He recognized that the gallivat, while short-handed, was too slow to make good the escape; the grab, with the wind contrary, could never be got out of the harbour; the only course open to him was to make use of the one to tow the other until they reached the open sea. As soon as a hawser could be bent the grab was taken in tow: its crew was impressed with the other prisoners as rowers, under the charge of the Biluchis; and with Desmond at the helm of the grab and the Gujarati steering the gallivat, the two vessels crept slowly seawards. They went at a snail's pace, for it was nearly slack tide; and slow as the progress of the gallivat had been before it was much slower now that the men had to move two vessels instead of one.

To Desmond, turning every now and again to watch the increasing glare from the burning gallivats, it seemed that he scarcely advanced at all.

The town and the townward part of the fort were minute by minute becoming more brightly illuminated; every detail around the blazing vessels could be distinctly seen; and mingled with the myriad noises from the sh.o.r.e was now the crackle of the flames, and the hiss of burning spars and rigging as they fell into the water.

The gallivats had separated into two groups; either they had been cut apart, or, more probably, the lashings had been burnt through. Around one of the groups Desmond saw a number of small boats. They appeared to be trying to cut out the middle of the three gallivats, which seemed to be as yet uninjured, while the vessels on either side were in full blaze. Owing to the intense heat the men's task was a difficult and dangerous one, and Desmond had good hope that they would not succeed until the gallivat was too much damaged to be of use for pursuit. He wondered, indeed, at the attempt being made at all; for it kept all the available boats engaged when they might have dashed upon the grab in tow and made short work of it. The true explanation of their blunder did not at the moment occur to Desmond. The fact was that the men trying so earnestly to save the gallivat knew nothing of what had happened to the grab. They were aware that a gallivat had been cut loose and was standing out to sea; but the glare of the fire blinded them to all that was happening beyond a narrow circle, and as yet they had had no information from sh.o.r.e of what was actually occurring. When they did learn that two vessels were on their way to the sea, they would no doubt set out to recapture the fugitives instead of wasting their efforts in a futile attempt to save the unsavable.

Desmond was still speculating on the point when another shot from the fort aroused him to the imminent danger. The dark shapes of the two vessels must now certainly be visible from the walls. The shot flew wide. Although the grab was well within range it was doubtless difficult to take aim, the distance being deceptive and the sights useless in the dark. But this shot was followed at intervals of a few seconds by another and another; it was clear that the fugitives were running the gauntlet of the whole armament on this side of the fort. The guns were being fired as fast as they could be loaded; the gunners were becoming accustomed to the darkness, and when Desmond heard the shots plumping into the water, nearer to him, it seemed, every time, he could not but recognize that success or failure hung upon a hair.

Crash! A round shot struck the grab within a few feet of the wheel. A shower of splinters flew in all directions. Desmond felt a stinging blow on the forehead; he put up his hand; when he took it away it was wet. He could not leave the wheel to see what damage had been done to the ship, still less to examine his own injury. He was alone on board.

Every other man was straining at his oar in the gallivat. He felt the blood trickling down his face; from time to time he wiped it away with the loose end of his dhoti. Then he forgot his wound, for two more shots within a few seconds of each other struck the grab forward.

Clearly the gunners were aiming at his vessel, which, being larger than the gallivat, and higher in the water, presented an easier mark. Where had she been hit? If below the waterline, before many minutes were past she would be sinking under him. Yet he could do nothing. He dared not order the men in the gallivat to cease rowing; he dared not leave the helm of the grab; he could but wait and hold his post. It would not be long before he knew whether the vessel had been seriously hit: if it was so, then would be the time to cast off the tow-rope.

The gallivat, at any rate, appeared not to have suffered. Desmond was beginning to think he was out of the wood when he heard a crash in front, followed by a still more ominous sound. The motion of the gallivat at once ceased, and, the grab slowly creeping up to her, Desmond had to put his helm hard up to avoid a collision. He could hear the Gujarati raging and storming on deck, and cries as of men in pain; then, as the grab came abreast of the smaller vessel, he became aware of what had happened. The mainmast of the gallivat had been struck by a shot and had gone by the board.

Desmond hailed the Gujarati and told him to get three or four men to cut away the wreckage.

"Keep an eye on the prisoners," he added, feeling that this was perhaps the most serious element in a serious situation; for with round shot flying about the vessel it might well have seemed to the unhappy men on the rowing benches that mutiny was the lesser of two risks. But the rowers were cowed by the presence of the two Biluchis armed with their terrible knives, and they crowded in dumb helplessness while the tangled rigging was cut away.

"Is any one hurt?" asked Desmond.

"One of the rowers has a broken arm, sahib," replied Shaik Abdullah.

"And I have a contusion of the nose," said the Babu lugubriously.

It was impossible to do anything for the sufferers at the moment. It was still touch-and-go with the whole party. The shots from the fort were now beginning to fall short, but, for all Desmond knew, boats might have been launched in pursuit, and if he was overtaken it meant lingering torture and a fearful death. He was in a fever of impatience until at length, the tangled shrouds having been cut away, the rowing was resumed and the two vessels began again to creep slowly seaward.

Gradually they drew out of range of the guns. Steering straight out to sea, Desmond had a clear view of the whole of the harbour and a long stretch of the river. The scene was brightly lit up, and he saw that two of the gallivats had been towed away from the burning vessels, from which the flames were now shooting high into the air. But even on the two that had been cut loose there were spurts of flame; and Desmond hoped that they had sustained enough damage to make them unseaworthy.

Suddenly there were two loud explosions, in quick succession. A column of fire rose towards the sky from each of the gallivats that were blazing most brightly. The fire had at length reached the ammunition.

The red sparks sprang upwards like a fountain, casting a ruddy glow for many yards around; then they fell back into the sea, and all was darkness, except for the lesser lights from the burning vessels whose magazines had as yet escaped. The explosions could hardly have occurred at a more opportune moment, for the darkness was now all the more intense, and favoured the fugitives.

There was a brisk breeze from the south-west outside the harbour, and when the two vessels lost the shelter of the headland they crept along even more slowly than before. Desmond had learnt enough of seamanship on board the _Good Intent_ to know that he must have sea-room before he cast off the gallivat and made sail northwards; otherwise he would inevitably be driven on sh.o.r.e. It was this fact that had prompted his operations in the harbour. He knew that the grabs could not put to sea unless they were towed, and the gallivats being rendered useless, towing was impossible.

The sea was choppy, and the rowers had much ado to control the sweeps.

Only their dread of the Biluchis' knives kept them at their work. But the progress, though slow, was steady; gradually the glow in the sky behind the headland grew dimmer; though it was as yet impossible to judge with certainty how much offing had been made, Desmond, resolving to give away no chances, and being unacquainted with the trend of the coast, kept the rowers at work, with short intervals of rest, until dawn. By this means he hoped to avoid all risk of being driven on a lee sh.o.r.e, and to throw Angria off the scent; for it would naturally be supposed that the fugitives would head at once for Bombay, and pursuit, if attempted, would be made in that direction.

When day broke over the hills, Desmond guessed that the coast must be now five miles off. As far as he could see, it ran north by east. He had now plenty of sea-room; there was no pursuer in sight; the wind was in his favour, and if it held, no vessel in Angria's harbour could now catch him. He called to the Gujarati, who shouted an order to the Biluchis; the worn-out men on the benches ceased rowing, except four, who pulled a few strokes every now and again to prevent the two vessels from colliding. Desmond had thought at first of stopping the rowing altogether and running the grab alongside the gallivat; but that course, while safe enough in the still water of the harbour, would have its dangers in the open sea. So, lashing the helm of the grab, he dropped into a small boat which had been b.u.mping throughout the night against the vessel's side, and in a few minutes was on board the gallivat.

He first inquired after the men who had been wounded in the night. One had a broken arm, which no one on board knew how to set. The Babu had certainly a much discoloured nose, the contusion having been caused no doubt by a splinter of wood thrown up by the shot. Two or three of the rowers had slight bruises and abrasions, but none had been killed and none dangerously hurt.

Then Desmond had a short and earnest talk with the Gujarati, who alone of the men had sufficient seamanship to make him of any value in deciding upon the next move.

"What is to be done with the gallivat?" asked Desmond.

"Scuttle her, sahib, and hoist sail on the grab."

"But the rowers?"