The First Mate Part 13

"Very well, we shall see," was the smiling reply as my lady skipper disappeared down the companion way.

Again I took up the telescope to resume my study of the junk, which I continued to do for the next half-hour or more. Then Master Julius made his appearance on deck. He came straight up to me, and as I looked at him, expecting some fresh unpleasantness, I detected a new expression in his eyes and on his features. The look of sullenness and discontent had disappeared, and he actually smiled as, looking me square in the eye, he held out his hand and exclaimed:

"Say, Mr Leigh, let's be friends, shall we?"

"Sure, old chap!" I replied, adopting an Americanism with which I had become quite familiar, as I grasped his outstretched hand; "the very best of friends, if you like. Why shouldn't we be? I am perfectly willing, if you are."

"Then it's a deal," he answered, seating himself at my side on the p.o.o.p rail. "Say!" he continued, "do you think we're going to have to fight that junk?"

"It is impossible to say, as yet," I replied. "I hope not; but if it should be necessary, do you want to take a hand?"

"Bet your life I do!" exclaimed the boy. "That's what I've come up to talk about. Momma says that you won't let me help because I'm not amenable to discipline, and you're afraid that I won't do as I'm told.

If I promise you, on my word of honour as a gentleman, that I'll do exactly as you tell me, will you let me come in?"

"Certainly I will, and be delighted to have your help," I replied.

"Then it's a deal," repeated the lad, again offering his hand.

I must confess that I was both puzzled and astounded at the sudden and amazing change that had come over the boy; but the secret soon came out.

It appeared that both his mother and his sister had been talking to him as it seemed he had never before been talked to in his life. They had told him a number of home truths in language that it seemed there was no possibility of misunderstanding; and they had done all this so convincingly that the dormant spirit of good that was in him had been effectually awakened. The withering scorn with which his sister had commented upon his behaviour in general and the offensive and contemptible traits of character that he had flaunted so flagrantly in all our faces had scorched and shrivelled his boyish soul; the picture of himself as others saw him was so repulsive that he had been overwhelmed with shame and--better still--repentance, and, if he was to be believed, had caused him to determine upon an altogether new line of action for the future.

Scorn, contempt, contumely, dislike, are disagreeable things to swallow, and now that his mother and sister had drawn aside the veil and allowed him to get a glimpse of their real opinion of him, it was rather more than he could bear. His pride and self-respect had been grievously hurt; he did not like to be despised and detested, so he was going now to make everybody respect and admire him. I had no very great faith in this conversion, I must confess--it seemed altogether too sudden to be genuine; but I was not going to say or do anything that might neutralise any good that might have been done. I listened with interest to all that the boy had to say, and replied encouragingly and sympathetically; and so the time pa.s.sed until Lizette appeared to summon us to luncheon, when the junk was still some two miles in the offing, and working in very slowly. There was no sign of any intention to hoist out boats, or attempt to communicate with us in any way, so I knew that I should have sufficient time to s.n.a.t.c.h a mouthful of food before the moment for action should arrive, and I descended to the dining-room with an easy mind.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WE ARE ATTACKED BY CHINESE PIRATE WRECKERS.

We had finished luncheon, and were all on deck watching the junk, when, about half-past two o'clock--she having by that time arrived within about a mile of the lagoon entrance--we saw her heave to; and a minute or two later it became evident that she was preparing to launch a boat, or boats. She was now close enough in for us to see, with the aid of the telescope, pretty nearly everything that was happening aboard her, and I was far from rea.s.sured when I noticed that the man upon the p.o.o.p-- probably the junk's captain--who was directing operations, wore a formidable-looking broad-bladed Chinese yatagan girded to his side, while, when he faced in our direction once or twice, pointing, I felt almost certain that I could detect one, if not a brace of pistols in his belt.

Presently we saw a boat of very respectable dimensions rise above the junk's bulwarks and slowly disappear over her lee rail; and this was followed by a second, and a third of at least equal size.

"Three boats!" I exclaimed. "That settles it. If she were here upon a friendly mission she would not send in three boats to take off half a dozen people. She is a wrecker, and only too probably a pirate as well.

Her people know that there are survivors on this wreck--our flare during the night and our ensign to-day will have told them that much-- but they do not know how many of us there are; so her skipper is sending in enough men to make quite sure of us, as he believes. And guns, too, by George!" I continued, as I saw an old-fashioned smooth-bore cannon in slings top the rail. "The rascals mean business, that is quite evident; but so do I. I am going below to bring up half a dozen more sh.e.l.ls; it is just possible that we may need them. Meanwhile, madam, will you kindly keep an eye on the junk while I am gone, and report to me what you have _seen_ when I return?"

Thrusting the gla.s.s into Mrs Vansittart's hands, I hurried away to the magazine and brought out six additional sh.e.l.ls, with the necessary cartridges, and, conveying them up on deck, placed them conveniently near the guns of the port battery, which I now saw were the only main-deck pieces that were at all likely to be of use to us.

Having at length completed my task, I rejoined the little group upon the p.o.o.p. I saw that the boats had already pushed off from the junk, and were pulling at a good pace toward the opening in the reef, while the junk herself had filled away again, and was beating up in the same direction.

"There are three boats, Walter, as you see," said Mrs Vansittart, handing over the telescope to me; "and if you look at them carefully through the gla.s.s you will also see that they are crowded with men--at least twenty in each boat, I should say. I dare say you will also notice, as I did, the glint of the sun upon many weapons; and, unless I am very greatly mistaken, each boat has a gun mounted in her bows. I am afraid there can be no possible doubt as to the intentions of those men."

"No," I agreed, as I raised the telescope to my eye; "no doubt whatever.

They mean to wipe us out if they can, and then plunder the wreck. But they will not do that while I am alive and able to resist them. Now," I continued, "you two ladies have each a revolver, and so have the stewardesses. They are fully loaded; and I have already explained to Miss Anthea why I have given them to you. I most fervently hope that there will be no need for you to use them in that way; but should there be--and one never knows; I may be bowled over and killed, or rendered helpless by a shot or a pike-thrust--I implore you not to hesitate too long. It would be infinitely better that you should die instantly and painlessly by a well-directed pistol shot than that you should fall alive into the hands of a crew of Chinese pirates."

The colour ebbed away from the cheeks of Mrs Vansittart and her daughter as I uttered the concluding words, but I saw a look of firmness and determination tightening about their lips while the elder lady said:

"Have no fear for us, Walter. I hope, with you, that we may not be driven to any such desperate step; but should we be, we both have courage enough to take it, and so, I think, have the two maids."

"Thank you!" I replied. "It is a relief to me to hear you speak so bravely. But do not act, I pray you, until the very last moment--until it has become clear beyond all question that everything is lost. Now, since those boats are within easy range, I will just give them a hint that we want to have nothing to do with them, and that they had better keep their distance."

I swung myself down off the p.o.o.p on to the main-deck, and, running to the forward gun of the port battery, which was the gun that could best be brought to bear on the advancing boats at that moment, I levelled the piece, aiming to strike the water at a point a few fathoms ahead of the middle boat of the three--they were advancing in line abreast. I calculated that the shot would rebound and fly over the heads of her crew close enough to frighten them a bit and make them think twice before advancing any farther. It was a rather difficult and risky shot--risky for those in the boat, I mean--but I pulled it off successfully. The sh.e.l.l dashed up a great column of snow-white spray, which completely hid the boat for a moment; and when this cleared away I saw that all the boats' crews were holding water, evidently taken a good deal by surprise, and apparently undecided what to do.

"Bravo, Walter; a beautiful shot!" exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, and I saw her s.n.a.t.c.h up the telescope and peer through it. She held it to her eye for a full minute; then, without lowering the instrument, she cried:

"There is a man standing up in the stern-sheets of the middle boat apparently haranguing the crews, for he is flourishing his arms about a great deal. Ah! he has stepped down again; and now--yes--the oarsmen are giving way again. The two outside boats look as though they were turning back--no, they are only opening out into wider order, and are coming on again. Try them with another shot, Walter. Perhaps if you can hit one of those boats the others may be induced to go back."

"Ay, ay!" I replied, with a flourish of my arm; and I carefully sponged out and reloaded the piece. But I did not now want the boats to return; I wanted them to come on and be destroyed. I was by this time convinced that the matter must be fought out to the bitter end, and that we must destroy that junk and the whole of her crew if we would not be ourselves destroyed. If the boats were driven back the vessel would hang about, watching her opportunity, or possibly return some night during the dark and take us unawares. It was their lives or ours that hung in the balance; therefore when I had reloaded the piece I ran my eye along the sights, and was in the act of training them upon the middle boat, when my attention was distracted for a moment by the distant boom of a gun.

Looking up, I saw that the junk had fired. I knew by the ring of the report that the gun was shotted, and presently I saw the shot come skipping toward us just inside the reef; but it fell a good way short, and I turned to my own gun again.

But now, when I wanted actually to hit the mark, I found that it was not quite so easy as I had imagined. To aim straight was easy enough, but even where they were the boats presented but a small mark, and they were constantly disappearing in the trough of the swell. It was therefore necessary for me to wait until my particular target reappeared before firing, and although the next two shots went very near indeed they did not actually hit. Meanwhile the junk was firing rapidly, making short tacks to keep as nearly abreast of us as might be, and her shot were gradually dropping nearer to us. Seeing this, I insisted that the ladies at least should go below, as now a shot might at any moment come aboard us. Julius begged hard to be allowed to remain, and, his mother raising no objection, I willingly consented, as there was no knowing when I might be glad of his a.s.sistance.

The three boats were now so close to the pa.s.sage through the reef that they were obliged to alter their formation to "line ahead" in order to pa.s.s through it; and it was at this moment that, with my fourth shot, I caught the leading boat fair and square, and literally blew her to pieces. I thought that perhaps this might check the advance of the remaining two boats; but not a bit of it. They did not even pause to pick up any of the survivors of the leading boat's crew--probably there were no survivors--but came on with a blood-curdling yell that evoked a faint shriek from, I thought, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the companion. Almost immediately afterward a round shot from the junk struck the water at a little distance away, and then went humming directly over my head, so close that I felt the wind of it.

At this juncture I became aware of the fact that the wind, what little there was of it, was falling lighter; our ensign was drooping from its staff all but dead, while the junk's sails were flapping with her every roll, and the little curl of water about her bows had all but disappeared. This afforded me a grain of comfort, for she could not draw very much nearer, though, to be sure, she was near enough already if her gunners' eyes were but straight enough to hit us; my great hope was that her heavy rolling would distract their aim, and so cause their shot either to fall short of or to fly over us. But I had no time to meditate at length upon these chances; the two boats were drawing dangerously near, and I must stop them by hook or by crook before they actually got alongside. I therefore quickly recharged my piece and carefully pointed it at the inner end of the pa.s.sage through the reef.

I had barely got this done to my satisfaction, when the leading boat thrust her nose through. Bang! The four-inch barked out its greeting, and a moment later that boat disappeared in flame and smoke, to my intense relief.

Mentally I patted myself on the back. "Now, surely," I thought, "that remaining boat will turn tail, and I shall have a chance to wipe her out on her way back to the junk!" But no; on she came, her crew yelling like demons, and churning the placid waters of the lagoon into foam with their oars. They sprang to their feet at each stroke, that they might throw the whole weight of their bodies into it, while a man standing in the stern-sheets frantically waved a most murderous-looking blade above his head. I jumped to the next gun--there was no time to reload now-- and hastily levelled it. As I did so I saw a flash burst from her bows, followed by a gust of smoke; the ball struck the waterway close by my feet and hurtled past, sending a shower of splinters flying, and this distracted my aim. I missed, and the shot harmlessly struck the water some distance astern of the boat, to be greeted by its occupants with a yell of mingled triumph and derision.

Matters were becoming frightfully critical now. Should I have time for another shot, I wondered? As the thought flashed through my brain a rifle shot rang out from the p.o.o.p, and, glancing that way, I saw the boy Julius with a Remington repeater at his shoulder aiming at the rapidly advancing boat. And--what I had absolutely forgotten--I saw also the Maxims standing there, ready for action! To dash up on to the p.o.o.p and level the port Maxim at the enemy was the work of but a moment, and the next instant the deadly little weapon was thudding away, pouring its leaden stream fair into the boat. At that range--a bare three hundred yards--it was impossible to miss, and in a few seconds every occupant of the boat was either dead or wounded; the oars trailed motionless in the water, the boat lost her way, and in less than a minute it became evident that the craft was sinking, literally riddled with that leaden hail.

"Hurrah!" I yelled. "There goes the last of them, and, thank G.o.d, that danger's over! Now for the junk herself. She must be settled, or there will be no safety for us."

I made my way down to the main-deck again, very nearly tumbling head over heels over Mrs Vansittart and her daughter, whom I found seated upon the stairs of the companion way. I paused just long enough to explain the situation to them, and then rushed out on deck in time to see the last boat, submerged to her gunwale, slowly roll over and go down bows first, leaving a few forms feebly struggling on the surface.

The junk was by this time completely becalmed and had lost her way; nevertheless she maintained a fairly steady fire upon us, and some of her shot came so unpleasantly close that I thought it well to order Julius down off the p.o.o.p, where he could be of no further use. I got to work with the main-deck guns again, and, possibly because I could take all the time I pleased over the aiming, did some very neat shooting. I fired six sh.e.l.ls in all at the junk, every one of which but the first went home--three of them close to her water-line.

They were destructive missiles, those sh.e.l.ls, bursting as they hit and blowing great holes in the junk's sides; and it soon became apparent that the vessel was sinking rapidly. I therefore ceased firing and went up on to the p.o.o.p to see the last of her. But she died game, for her crew maintained a steady fire upon us until she foundered, her last shot being fired at the very moment when she was plunging stern first beneath the waves. And by an unlucky chance that last shot came slap aboard the wreck, struck the teak p.o.o.p rail within a foot of where I stood, and scattered a number of splinters, one of which, a heavy one, caught me in the side of the head, very nearly scalped me, and sent me reeling to the deck senseless.

I recovered consciousness slowly, my first sensation being that the top of my head seemed to be on fire. Then I became aware that I was being partially supported by somebody's knee behind my shoulders, and that my head was being bathed. Finally I opened my eyes, to find Mrs Vansittart bending over me with a sponge in her hand, which she was just withdrawing from a basin of bloodstained water, while the boy Julius supported me in a semi-rec.u.mbent position as I lay on the deck.

"Ah, that is better!" exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, as she bent over me.

"He is coming to himself. Lizette," raising her voice; "hurry with that brandy. Is your head very painful, Walter?"

"It feels as though it were being held much too close to a fierce fire,"

I replied, "and, in addition, it is aching most atrociously. It is most unfortunate that--"

"Yes, it is indeed, you poor boy!" replied Mrs Vansittart as I paused, a feeling of deadly nausea sweeping over me. "Ah," she continued, as the chief stewardess appeared with a tumbler in her hand, "here is the brandy! Sip this, Walter; it will revive you. And as soon as you are able to move, we must get you below, and I must attend to your head and dress it properly. Then you must go to bed and endeavour to get some sleep. You have taken splendid care of us this morning, and now it will be our turn to take care of you."

"Oh, thank you very much!" I murmured; "but I hope this unlucky blow on the head is not going to make me a nuisance to you. As to turning in, I simply cannot do it. A careful watch must be maintained for several hours yet, lest some of the men from that junk should swim to the wreck and get aboard us. Even so few as half a dozen able-bodied Chinamen could make a lot of trouble for us just now."

"Yes," agreed Julius, "they could. But I guess I'm not going to give them the chance. You'll just have to turn in, as Momma says, and leave me to look after things. And, see here, Mr Leigh, don't you worry about anything. I'll keep a look-out, and if any swimming c.h.i.n.ks come meandering around here, I'll just give 'em socks, you bet!"

This was rea.s.suring; for if the boy was willing to undertake the duty he could quite easily keep a considerable number of swimmers at a distance with the a.s.sistance of a Remington. A few sips of brandy served to restore my strength greatly; and presently, with the help of Mrs Vansittart and Lizette, I was able to make my way below to the drawing-room. There I pa.s.sed a particularly unpleasant three-quarters of an hour while the lady skipper snipped most of my hair off and afterwards coaxed the lacerated scalp back into place, securing it in position with straps of sticking plaster and finishing off by a dressing of healing ointment and bandages.

When all was done, the two stewardesses helped me to my own cabin; and after they had left me I somehow managed to undress and get into my bunk, which I was glad enough to do, for I was beginning to feel distinctly ill. I have a hazy recollection that after I had been in my bunk a little while, Mrs Vansittart came to me and administered a dose of medicine, which she told me was intended to make me sleep. Then I seemed to pa.s.s into a condition wherein I was the victim of a long succession of hideous nightmares, during which I was either perpetually battling with a thousand awful perils, or was lying helpless in the hands of cruel and relentless savages, who were inflicting the most dreadful torments upon me.

It was a close, muggy, and suffocatingly hot day when I at length emerged from this condition of extreme mental and physical suffering.