The Corsair King Part 11

From the French prisoners he learned that the two most formidable English war-ships, the Weymouth and Hirondelle had left the coast and would not return for several months, so they sailed boldly into the harbor.

The Onslow, the finest vessel of the Anglo-African Company was lying at anchor in the port.

Her captain and officers were on sh.o.r.e, where the governor was giving a ball in their honor. From the windows of his residence they could see the pirates a.s.sail their ship and, ere they could hasten back to it, the crew had surrendered.

The captain of the Onslow, Fennimore Gee, rowed alone to the pirate ship and, pistol in hand, demanded that Barthelemy should restore his ship and fight with him like an honest man, instead of attacking by stealth.

The novel proposition of returning a captured ship to its owner and then fighting for its possession so pleased Barthelemy that he declared his willingness to accept it.

His own men also accepted the challenge, but the Onslow's crew refused to fight against Barthelemy, and begged him to take them into his band.

Captain Gee despairingly fired his pistols among the rascally throng, and appealed to Barthelemy, if he had a drop of honorable blood in his body, not to stain his fame as a buccaneer by receiving into his band the worthless fellows who, in the hour of peril, had deserted their captain.

"I'll tell you, my worthy captain," said Robert gayly to his opponent, tossing in the little boat on the waves below. "You are so brave a man that I could not reconcile my conscience to leaving you without a ship.

Come, I'll give you, in exchange for the Onslow, my own vessel, the Commodore here. I can vouch for its being a good sailer and valuable, though I got it very cheap. But from sheer philanthropy, I can't give up your crew, you would decimate it; the soldiers, however, you shall have, I don't care what becomes of the land rats."

So before the eyes of the whole harbor, he exchanged ships with the English captain, and after having the old name Onslow effaced and Royal Fortune painted over it in large gilt letters, he set sail with both his vessels for Calabar.

By way of pastime, part of the pirates, under Skyrme's command, made short expeditions on the Fox-Hound to search for any ships that might be crossing their path.

One day the Fox-Hound returned to the Royal Fortune, with all sail set, and reported having noticed on the horizon two suspicious vessels, which instantly gave chase; they were probably men-of-war, and the Fox-Hound had escaped only by crowding on all sail, but they were still pursuing.

"Let them come," said Barthelemy, sweeping the sea with his gla.s.s, and soon discovered on the horizon the two ships which, at that distance, resembled sea-gulls.

"Those are not men-of-war," cried Barthelemy, "they look more like pirates, and are coming toward us with every inch of canvas spread.

They will fare badly."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Skyrme, "that's all we lack. We have conquered plenty of merchantmen and war-ships, now we must capture pirates to have the whole variety."

The entire crew watched the approaching ships with eager curiosity, saying to one another, "They think they are attacking a government ship, how amazed they will be when they reach us!"

Moody was shading his eyes first with one hand and then the other, straining them till they fairly started from their sockets. Suddenly he clapped his hands, threw up his hat, and throwing himself down on the deck laughed till he was red in the face.

"Moody! Have you gone crazy?" asked Barthelemy. "The man never laughed before in his whole life. What ails you, Moody?"

"Don't you know those ships?" he asked, half raising himself, then flung himself back in another fit of laughter so uncontrollable that the men were obliged to seize and hold him before he grew quiet.

"Speak, old lunatic, what ails you?"

"When I tell you, you'll all jump out of your skins. Don't you see those two ships? Don't you recognize them? They are the Sea Devil, and the Dutch ship which ran away from us, left us starving on the sea, and now are coming straight into the jaws of our guns! Isn't it enough to drive a man mad with joy?"

The awful shout of delight from the pirates drowned Moody's laughter; with bloodthirsty eagerness they rushed for their weapons, climbed on the yards to get a better view of the approaching vessels, and shook their fists at them.

They had found the traitors who had left their comrades to meet the most terrible death by starvation, and who now voluntarily came to encounter their revenge. This thought moved even Barthelemy so much that a burning flush crimsoned his pale face. His mute lips refused to give utterance to his feverish joy, but his countenance belied them.

"Calm yourselves!" he said to his men, "we'll let them come nearer; get behind the bulwarks, they must be an easy prey, and their hearts shall stop beating when they suddenly see our faces."

The buccaneers quietly drew back; their foes came toward them with every sail spread. Already they could see distinctly on the prow the hideous figure of the Sea Devil, and as the pirates recognized one man after another they whispered, gnashing their teeth: "There is so and so!"

"Keep your weapons ready," Barthelemy commanded in a low tone.

"We need no knives, we'll tear them to pieces with our nails," said Asphlant.

On arriving within gunshot range, the black flag suddenly fluttered from every masthead of the Sea Devil, and a bullet, hissing between the Royal Fortune's sails was the challenge to speak. The deepest silence reigned on Barthelemy's ship. The Sea Devil sailed close up to it, the Dutch consort remaining a little behind. "Oho! Where is your captain?" shouted some one on the Sea Devil.

"That's Kennedy's voice!" whispered Barthelemy giving the signal to raise the black flag.

At the moment when, to the horror of the men on the Sea Devil, the black flag floated from the Royal Fortune's mast, Barthelemy sprang on the bulwark, shouting in stentorian tones:

"I am here, you worthless traitors! Do you still know Robert Barthelemy?"

The a.s.sailants were instantly as silent as if death had stricken them; Kennedy, in his terror, leaped into a boat and, pushing off from the ship tried to reach the Dutch vessel, the others flung their weapons away like madmen and, in the insanity of terror, leaped into the waves.

They were soon released from their trouble; two volleys poured at the same moment from the guns of the Royal Fortune and the Fox Hound shattered the Sea Devil which, amid frightful shrieks of despair, sank with every man on board.

Meanwhile Kennedy and a few others had succeeded in reaching the Dutch ship, which instantly spread every sail in a desperate effort to reach the land.

Barthelemy pursued with both his ships.

The fugitive flung overboard all her ballast and finally even her guns, by which sacrifice she succeeded in reaching the sh.o.r.e before the other ships could interpose.

A throng of Calabrian negroes stood on the land watching the fight.

Kennedy hastily ordered his men into the boats and escaped to the sh.o.r.e.

"Not even that will save you," said Barthelemy, ordering the largest boat to be lowered. He had eight guns placed in it, entered himself with forty of his men, and commanded them to row to the beach.

Kennedy saw that Barthelemy intended to land and began to tell the negroes, with loud cries, that he was a monster who had come to conquer their land and burn their dwellings. They must on no account permit him to come ash.o.r.e.

The shouts of the negroes showed that the pirates had succeeded in exciting these savages against their former comrades, and the negroes soon began to greet the boat with a shower of arrows and stones.

"So much the better," murmured Barthelemy. "Two at one blow: traitors and negroes. To-day vengeance will reap a harvest, this is the festival of death. Fire among them."

The guns of the boat roared, scattering death among the blacks, in whose ranks the bombs tore wide openings, and, amid this thunder, forty men landed in the face of ten thousand negroes.

Kennedy and his companions urged the Calabrians to a desperate defence, and they rushed with bloodthirsty fury at the buccaneers, hurling a cloud of arrows and lances.

Only two or three fell wounded by these missiles, the others moved forward in close ranks, aiming at the most prominent leaders in the negro ranks.

When the latter saw their strongest warriors, who in battle were equal to a hundred men, fall by invisible weapons sent from a distance before they could reach their a.s.sailants with their battle axes, they began to retreat in confusion, left their huts and, dragging Kennedy and his men with them, climbed a steep hill, up which they could not be followed, and from which no efforts availed to draw them. Barthelemy, with wild delight, walked over the battle-ground, counting the corpses. They had all been victims of his revenge for his murdered love.

"This was blessed work," he murmured. "h.e.l.l is blacker by eight hundred negroes."

"Captain," said Scudamore, rousing him from his reverie, "our bitterest enemies have escaped under our eyes. There is but one way to reach and destroy them in the place where they have sought refuge."

"What is it?"

"It would be idle for me to show you, you would not use it, but give me authority to do as I please for half an hour and I promise to bring you the heads of all these traitors without sacrificing one of our men."

"I should like to see that."