One of the 28th Part 9

"They will have to work right out into the arms of one or other of them."

They rowed a hundred yards out, when, beyond the furthermost point they could see to the east, the sails of the schooner were perceived.

"Take her round," the captain said sharply. "It's too late now, we have got to fight for it."

They rowed back through the entrance. The schooner slowly towed by her boats was approaching.

"It is no use," the captain said, "you are too late. The schooner has rounded the end of the island, and with this breeze will be here in half an hour. You never can work out in time. Beside, they would see you come out; and even if you got away, which you couldn't do, they would come back and capture the depot. We have got to fight for it, that's evident; and the boats of a fleet could hardly make their way in here. We had best get the three craft moored with their broadsides to the entrance. We will blow the boats to tinder if they try to come in, and then we can load up with all the most valuable goods and slip out at night-time. That is our only chance."

The captain of the schooner jumped into the boat, and they again rowed out into the entrance. He saw at once that the other's advice was the only one to be followed. It would be impossible to beat off the sh.o.r.e before the schooner came up and while they were talking the frigate appeared round the other end of the island. They therefore returned into the harbor. The Belle Marie's anchor was raised, and the three vessels moored head and stern across the harbor, a hundred yards from the entrance. As soon as this was done strong parties were sent ash.o.r.e from each of the vessels, and six heavy ship's guns that had been landed from some captured vessel were dragged from their place near the storehouse and planted on the heights, so as to sweep the narrow channel.

It was late in the evening before this was finished, and an earthwork thrown up to shelter the men working the guns from musketry fire. In the meantime the two ships of war had met outside, and again separating cruised several times from end to end of the rocky wall, evidently searching for the entrance through which the privateers they had been pursuing had so suddenly disappeared. In the morning the French sailors were at work early, and two or three strong chains were fastened across the mouth of the pa.s.sage.

"Now," the captain of the Belle Marie said exultantly, as he regained the deck of his ship, "we are ready to give them a warm reception. The boats of all the British cruisers on the station would never force their way through that gap."

Ralph had not been called upon to a.s.sist in the work of preparation, he and Jacques having done their day's work on the journey to the top of the hill and back. He saw from the exultation in the faces of the Frenchmen that they considered their position was impregnable, and he shuddered at the thought of the terrible carnage that would ensue if the boats of the English vessels should try to force an entrance. The following morning a lookout on the cliffs reported that two boats had left the ships and were rowing toward the sh.o.r.e. On reaching the foot of the cliffs they rowed along abreast at a distance of thirty or forty yards of the sh.o.r.es. They stopped rowing at the mouth of the entrance, and were suddenly hailed by the captain of the schooner, who was standing on the cliff above.

"If you try to enter," he said, "you will be destroyed at once. We don't want to harm you if you will leave us alone; but we have guns enough to blow a whole fleet out of water, and will use them if we are driven to it."

"Thank you for your warning," a voice shouted back from the boats, and then an order was given, and they rowed back to the ships.

"Well, have you found the place, Lieutenant Pearson?" the captain of the frigate asked as the young lieutenant stepped on deck.

"Yes, sir, we have found it. It is just where the boat turned and came out again."

"I can see no signs of it now," the captain said, examining the sh.o.r.e with his telescope.

"No, sir; you wouldn't until you were within a hundred yards of it.

But rowing close in as we were we saw it some time before we got there. The rocks overlap each other, and there is a narrow channel some fifty yards long between them. Apparently this makes a sharp turn at the other end and opens out. We saw nothing of the vessels we were chasing yesterday, but on high ground facing the channel there is a battery of six guns planted so as to rake anything coming in. There are some chains across the end. While we were lying on our oars there we were hailed." And he then repeated the warning that had been given.

"Nasty place to get into--eh?" the captain said thoughtfully.

"Very nasty, sir. You see, the guns would play right down into the channel; then there are the chains to break down, and perhaps more batteries, and certainly the ships to tackle when we get inside."

"Is there width for the frigate to enter?" the captain asked.

"Just width, I should say, and no more, sir. We should certainly have to get the yards braced fore and aft, but the ship herself would go through with something to spare, I should say."

"What depth of water is there close in sh.o.r.e?"

"Plenty of depth sir, right up to the foot of the cliffs; but of course I can say nothing as to the depth in the channel."

"No, of course not," the captain said. "Well, it's something that we have run these pests to earth at last, but I see it is going to be no easy matter to get at them."

The captain now signaled to the captain of the schooner to come on board, and when he did so the two officers retired to the cabin together and had a long consultation. The young officer on coming on deck got into his boat, and taking Lieutenant Pearson with him rowed for the cliffs, a few hundred yards to the west of the inlet. Here they could obtain a view of the channel and its surroundings. Not a man was to be seen. The muzzles of the six guns pointed menacingly down into the pa.s.sage, and the chains could be seen just above the water's edge.

"I think we will go back now, Mr. Pearson. I really think we ought to be very much obliged to those fellows for not sinking us. I wonder what was their motive in letting us off so easily?"

"I suppose they feel pretty confident that our report is not likely to encourage an attack, and they think that if they were to blow us to pieces it would only make Captain Wilson the more determined to destroy them. At least that is the conclusion I came to as I rowed back last time."

"Yes, I should think that is it," the young captain said. "It is certainly as awkward a looking place to attack in boats as I ever saw.

Of course were it not for the chains my vessel could get in, and I dare say she has been in there many a time before we captured her, but it would be a very risky thing to take the frigate in without knowing anything of the depth of water either in the channel or inside."

Both returned to the frigate. "Mr. Pearson's report is fully borne out, Captain Wilson. It would be a most desperate enterprise to attack with our boats. Half of them would be sunk before they got to the chains; and even if they got past them, which I doubt, there is no saying what difficulties and obstacles may be inside."

"And now about the frigate, Captain Chambers."

"Well, sir, that is for you to decide. I am quite ready to take the schooner in; though with the plunging power of that battery raking her fore and aft I say fairly that it would be a desperate enterprise, and if she had not sufficient way upon her to carry away the chains nothing could save her. As to the frigate, it seems to me that she would run an equal risk with the schooner, with the additional danger that there may not be water enough for her."

"Well, it certainly doesn't seem to be an easy nut to crack," Captain Wilson said. "As we agreed before you started, we should not be justified in risking both our vessels in a.s.saulting a place which is certainly extremely formidable, and where there may not be water enough for the frigate to float. Still the question remains, what is to be done? It is no use anchoring here and trying to starve them out; they may have provisions enough to last them for years, for anything we know. If the weather were to turn bad we should have to make off at once; it would never do to be caught in a hurricane with such a coast as that on our lee. I might send you to Port Royal with a letter to the admiral, asking him to send us two or three more ships; but I don't like doing that when it is a mere question of capturing two rascally privateers."

"I think the admiral would be glad to send them," the younger captain said; "for these two vessels have done a tremendous lot of damage during the last year. I believe that upward of twenty ships have reported being boarded and stripped by them."

"But if they came what could they do?" Captain Wilson asked. "You see we consider it is not worth the risk of throwing away two ships two force this pa.s.sage, still less would it be to risk four."

"That is so, no doubt," Captain Chambers agreed. "I should suggest that however many of us there may be we should all draw off and keep a watch at a distance. Of course it would be necessary to approach at night, and to lie behind the island somewhere in the daytime just as we did yesterday, for from the top of that hill they can see any distance round."

"Yes, and as soon as it is dusk they will have two or three hours to get away before we can come round here. Beside, with their night-gla.s.ses from the top of the cliffs they will be sure to be able to make us out. There is only one other way that I can see of getting at them, that is to find a landing-place and attack them from on sh.o.r.e."

"Ah! that's much more hopeful business. As far as I saw yesterday there are cliffs all round the island; but it is hard indeed if we cannot find some place where we can manage to effect a landing.

"This is the plan we must follow out. This afternoon an hour before it gets dark you get up sail and make away as if you were bound for Port Royal. I shall keep my station here. They will think you have gone off to get some more ships. As soon as it is thoroughly dark bear round and come back to the island; bring the schooner in close to the cliffs on the other side and get into a bay if you can find one. You will then be out of sight altogether unless somebody happens to look down from the edge of the cliffs above you.

"Then search the whole of the back of the island with boats, keeping at oar's length from the cliffs. There must be some places where a man can climb up, probably gulleys worn by streams. Then to-morrow night sail round and join us again. I will be waiting for you about two miles off the land, and will show a light to seaward so that you will know where to find me. Then we can talk matters over, and you can get back to the other side again before morning."

While the captains of the two English vessels were holding consultations a similar talk was going on between the three captains of the privateers, and the conclusion they arrived at was precisely similar to that of the English officers. It was agreed that no attack was likely to be made by the ships, as they would almost certainly be sunk by the plunging fire of the battery as they came along the channel; while an a.s.sault by the boats would be sheer madness.

"We have only to wait and tire them out," the captain of the schooner said, rubbing his hands. "The first gale from the north they must run for shelter, and before they can come back to their station again we shall be gone. Of course we will load well up beforehand with all that is really worth taking away, and can let them have the pleasure of destroying the rest after we have gone."

"They will know all that as well as we do," the captain of La Belle Marie said. "They will never be fools enough to try and starve us out, but you are quite mistaken if you think we are out of danger."

"Why, what danger can there be?" the others asked. "We have agreed they cannot attack us by the channel."

"No, they cannot attack us from the channel, but they can attack us from somewhere else now they know we are here. They will find some place where they can land and take us in rear."

An exclamation of dismay broke from the other captains.

"_Sapriste!_ I never thought of that. Of course they can. I have never examined the coast on the other side, but there must be places where they could land."

"No doubt there are; and you may be quite sure that is the course they will adopt. These English are slow, but they are not fools; and I will bet ten to one that is the next move they will be up to. If you like I will take a score of my men and cross the island this afternoon, and to-morrow will examine the whole line of sh.o.r.e. If there are only one or two places they can land at we may be able to defend them; but if there are four or five places far apart our force won't be sufficient to hold them all, for they could land two hundred and fifty men from those two ships, perhaps a hundred more."

"That is the best thing to be done, Vipon. Of course you will send us word across directly you see how the land lies. If we find that they can land in a good many places, there will be nothing for us to do but try and make a bolt for it. Keeping close in under the cliffs at night we may manage to give them the slip, or in any case one if not two of us may get away. Better that than to run the risk of being all caught like rats in a trap here."

An hour afterward the captain of the Belle Marie started for the other side of the island with twenty picked men, carrying with them their arms, axes, and two days' provisions. The rest of the crews were employed during the day in filling up the three vessels with the most valuable portion of the booty in the storehouses, care being taken not to fill the vessels so deeply as would interfere seriously with their sailing powers. An arrangement had been made between the captains that the Belle Marie should transfer her cargo to the first vessel worth sending to France that she captured, receiving as her share one-third of its value if it reached port safely.

The captain of the Belle Marie was well content with this arrangement, for the storehouses contained the spoils of upward of twenty ships, and his share would therefore be a considerable one, and he would only have to carry the cargo till he fell in with an English merchantman.

All speculation as to the British schooner's whereabouts was put an end to the next morning, by a message from Captain Vipon saying she had been discovered lying close in under the cliffs at the back of the island, and that her boats were already examining the sh.o.r.e. An hour later the captain himself arrived.

"It is as I feared," he said when he joined the other captains; "there are three bays about two miles apart and at all of these a landing could be easily effected. The land slopes gradually down to the edge of the sea. They might land at any of them, and of course the guns of the schooner would cover the landing if we opposed it."