Picked up at Sea Part 24

On the shot being fired, the main body of the pirates rushed forward, and would have annihilated the captain and the two lads, had not their chief stopped them with some harsh word of command, at which they immediately fell back again.

"I bear no malice, Captain Harding," said the pirate chief, with a magnanimous air, "and I'll forgive your attempt on my life, especially as the bullet missed its mark. I will also, as you have such scruples of conscience, excuse you from acting still as the captain of this vessel, and promote your chief officer--I believe the gentleman is up aloft--to that post. I've no doubt he will prove more accommodating, particularly when I place my reasons strongly before him. But I have not done with you yet, captain. I shall want you presently below with reference to the ship's papers and cargo. So now put down your weapons, and order your men to disarm. I will save your lives, I promise."

"Boys, we must submit; we're in their power, and they are too strong for us," said Captain Harding, turning to Tom and Charley. "I don't suppose they'll murder us now in cold blood; we must trust their word for it-- the word of a pirate," he added aloud, with bitter scorn.

"And you can trust it," replied the pirate chief proudly. "The word of Demetri, the Corsair of Chios, is known to be as sacred as his name is feared in the Aegean Sea."

"By Jingo!" exclaimed the captain, looking from Tom to Charley, and back again to the pirate chief. "Demetri, the corsair! Why, that's the very man that Mohammed told you about at Beyrout, and whom I would not believe in."

And the honest old fellow seemed to reproach himself for not paying more heed to the boys' story.

"The same, at your service," said the corsair, as he had better be called now. "Now lay down your arms, and I shall treat you as prisoners on parole."

"And you promise that we shall go free?" said Captain Harding, pleading for terms, although he felt that they were vanquished.

"Yes, when I've done with you. Look sharp! Time is pressing, and I cannot answer for my men much longer," said Demetri.

So Captain Harding, Tom, and Charley, and the steward, laid on the deck the weapons with which they had hastily armed themselves when below as soon as the noise of the outbreak reached them, when they were instantly picked up by one of the Greeks, who stepped forward for the purpose by his leader's orders.

"We are now at your mercy," said the captain. "I don't mind about myself, but, Corsair, or whatever you are, spare the poor boys and my remaining men."

"Their lives are safe, I tell you," said the other impatiently. "Have I not given my word? But call your other men down," he added, pointing to Jack Bower, who was still half-way up the rigging, and Tompkins in the mizzen-top.

Captain Harding summoned them, and Jack Bower at once obeyed his orders; but the first mate refused to budge, saying, that as he was no longer master of the ship, he was not compelled to carry out his directions, especially if doing so jeopardised his life.

"The cowardly rascal!" exclaimed the captain, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to be angry; but Mr Tompkins was really so paralysed with terror that he had not the faintest idea of what he was saying, "I'll soon make him obey me," said the corsair, c.o.c.king the captain's revolver, which he had taken from him, and pointing it at the frightened occupant of the top above his head. "If you are not on deck by the time I count five, you, first officer, or whatever you call yourself, I'll fire, and you'll descend to Davy Jones's locker quicker than it will take you to come down the rigging! One--two--three--"

"Stop, sir, good gentleman, stop, and I'll come down," faltered out Mr Tompkins, roused from his fright more by the corsair's action than his words, for a pointed pistol has a wonderfully persuasive way of its own; and, with hesitating feet, he slowly descended the ratlins and placed himself beside the captain, who looked at him first contemptuously, and then turned his back, muttering between his teeth--

"If I had had a man in charge of the watch, or even one of these boys, we would never have been put in this position."

"You are wrong there," said the corsair, "for we would have attacked you all the same."

"Never mind," retorted the captain bravely. "But we would not have been unprepared, and you would have had a tussle to get on board, instead of things being made easy for you."

"Have your own way in that," replied the other, shrugging his shoulders, as he gave some unintelligible order to his men, ten of whom slipped forward, placing themselves on either side of the captain and the two lads, and the other Englishmen, with the exception of the chief mate-- two Greeks to each of them. "I'm sorry, captain," continued the corsair, "but I am compelled to put you and your countrymen to some little inconvenience, lest you should be tempted to escape, when it would be the worse for you."

And, at another word of command, all the hands of the whole party were securely lashed behind their backs.

"As for you," said the corsair, speaking more harshly than he had yet done, as he turned to Tompkins, "if you dare move without my permission, you are a dead man! Stop there, and if any vessel hails you as we pa.s.s into the archipelago, mind you answer correctly as if you were still pursuing your original voyage, for we are going for a time in the same course. I shall hear you, so beware!"

And he waved his sharp yataghan before the first mate's eyes in a way which he did not at all relish, although he took the hint as it was intended.

The corsair now gave the man whom he had sent to the helm after the parley was over, some directions as to the steering of the _Muscadine_, which was then entering the channel between Rhodes and Scarpanto, nearly about the very time that poor Captain Harding had expected, although under strangely different circ.u.mstances; after which, he motioned the captain to precede him down the companion, while he told the others to remain where they were on deck until he returned, enforcing his order by placing a guard over them.

"We'll now go below, captain, and overhaul the ship's papers, as I suggested to you just now," said the corsair in a politely peremptory tone; and the captain, seeing no help for it, and no object to be gained by opposing the wish of his captor, obeyed the veiled order, the two descending to the cabin, where they remained some time, whether in argument or in conference of course those who were on deck could not guess, although both Tom and Charley would have bet their last sixpence that the corsair did not get much voluntary information out of their skipper.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER SIX.

A SELL FOR THE PIRATE.

Acting apparently under instructions previously given, the felucca, after transferring a large portion of her men to the merchant ship, proceeded some distance ahead of her, as if not to cause any suspicions by her propinquity should any vessel pa.s.s by them in their pa.s.sage through the channel. But she still remained close enough to be signalled by her commander should her nearer presence be needed.

When the pirate chief and Captain Harding returned on deck from their visit below, Tom and Charley could see, from the fierce looks of the one and the stolidly stubborn expression of the other, that their private interview had not been of the most agreeable nature, and they soon learned the reason.

"I have been deceived, duped, despoiled of my just dues," exclaimed the corsair frantically, as he gained the deck, speaking in English as if for the special benefit of the two lads and their unfortunate fellow-countrymen; "and had it not been for my sacred word which I never break once I have given it, overboard you should go, every one, with your throats cut!"

"But," said Captain Harding, "we have not deceived you as to the value of the ship and cargo. If anybody is to be blamed, you must look to those agents and spies you employ who have misinformed you."

"Silence!" shouted out the other, foaming with pa.s.sion. "You are a miserable set of impostors, you English! How could I tell that a big vessel like this would only be half-loaded with a lot of trumpery stuff that's not worth the freight; and that her captain had hardly a piastre to bless himself with? And yet you English people boast of your wonderful wealth. I call it a scandalous imposition, wasting my time in this way, and the lives of my men, for nothing."

And he stamped his feet in his rage as he walked to and fro.

Charley could hardly refrain from laughing at the pirate chief going on in this way about being taken in. As he whispered to Tom, when he had the chance, it reminded him of the pickpocket who had stolen a watch, complaining of being hardly used because the article turned out to be pinchbeck!

"If you like to let us go, I will give you a bond for the estimated value of the ship and cargo," said Captain Harding, wishing to pacify the man--who now appeared capable of going any lengths in his fury--for he did not place much credence in his loudly vaunted promise of saving their lives.

His suggestion, however, only seemed to add fuel to the fire.

"Yes, and a nice fool I should be to present it for payment, and have the police upon me. Do you take me for an addle-pated idiot? I tell you what I will do. I will burn your miserable old hulk of a ship, and its rotten cargo; and you and she can roast together!"

"And your pledged word as to our lives?" said the captain.

"I told you I wouldn't take them, and my word is good, although I spared your life simply because I might want your signature. But if the ship catches fire, and you unfortunately cannot escape from her, of course it will not be my fault--don't you see?"

And the corsair gave a malignant laugh, that disclosed his real disposition better than words, and convinced the Englishmen of the futility of appealing to him for pity.

It was now broad daylight, and the _Muscadine_ was working up to windward of the cl.u.s.ter of small islands that lie to the northward of Scarpanto, having just weathered the channel that separates it from Rhodes, when the topmasts of a ship could be seen rounding the headland nearest them.

"It's one of our cruisers, boys," whispered Captain Harding, whose keen eyes had distinguished a pendant flying from the main-truck of the new-comer.--"We are saved! we're saved!"

The pirate captain, however, had ears as quick as the captain's eyes were keen.

"Gag that babbler," he cried to his men--in Greek of course--"and the two boys as well, and bundle them down into the cabin. Stay! take those men also, and serve them the same," pointing to the steward and Jack Bower and the other three seamen.

All the Englishmen were hurried below without any unnecessary delay, with the exception of Mr Tompkins, whom the corsair next addressed, presenting the captain's c.o.c.ked revolver as he did so, and pressing the cold steel muzzle of the pistol against his right temple.

"You coward!" said he with a thrilling hiss on his tongue like a serpent's; "your life trembles in the balance. If that vessel now approaching hails us, and you do not answer correctly, as I have already warned you, this bullet goes through your brain. Do you hear?"

"I hear. I--I--I--hear," faltered out the first mate, while the perspiration stood out in great beads of fright on his forehead.

The vessel in front came nearer and nearer; and presently she rounded-to under the _Muscadine's_ stern, the old well-known Union Jack of Old England floating up to the masthead the while, and a hearty voice hailing the merchantman through a speaking-trumpet from her quarter-deck, not half a cable's length away, in true nautical fashion--

"Ship ahoy! What ship is that?"

The corsair was standing by the side of Mr Tompkins, close by the taffrail. Before Captain Harding had been taken below he had removed his uniform cap and monkey-jacket, and put them on himself, so that he might pa.s.s for one of the ship's officers, and he had likewise directed the majority of his men to lie down on the deck, lest their numbers might create suspicion.