The Ghost Ship Part 29

"Yes, it's me, myself, sure enough, Prout; and I'm right glad to see you," said the colonel, equally delighted. "There, Senor Applegarth, didn't I tell you any of my old Louisianian hands would like to see me again, in spite of what I said about those infernal n.i.g.g.e.rs who seized our ship?"

"Aye, you did, colonel, you did," replied the skipper, waving his hand in the air; "but never mind that now--I'm going to speak to the crew."

"Now, me bhoys, altogether," cried Garry O'Neil, looking over the top of the b.o.o.by-hatch over the companion-way, "three cheers for the cap'en, horray!"

"Horray!" roared the lot below with a kindred enthusiasm, "Horray!

Horray!"

"We're almost within hail now of the chase, sir," sang out Mr Fosset from the bridge when the echo of the last deafening cheer had died away; "I'm going to slow down, so that we can sheer up alongside."

"That's just what I was waiting for," said the skipper in answer to this. "Now, men, you see that ship ahead of us?"

"Aye," called out the foremost hand, who had before spoken--the usual leader, and the wit of the fo'c's'le--"the ghost-ship, cap'en."

"Well, ghost-ship, devil-ship, or whatever she may be, my lads, we're going to board her and rescue a young lady, a child in age, the daughter of my friend, Colonel Vereker here, and a lot of white men like yourselves, who are now at the mercy of a gang of black demons who have murdered the rest of the pa.s.sengers and crew and taken possession of the vessel. Are you going to stand by me, lads?"

His answer was another deafening cheer, heartier and louder even than the first.

"Ah, I thought I could reckon on your help," cried the skipper in a tone of proud satisfaction, glancing round at the colonel. "I have got your tools handy for you, too, my lads; and if you will come up to the p.o.o.p in single file by the port-ladder, going down again by the starboard gangway, each shall be supplied in turn. Mr O'Neil, please serve out the cutla.s.ses and boarding-pikes. Now, my men, way aloft there! Single file, and no crushing, mind, and we'll get the job done all the quicker!"

Ere he had finished speaking the arming of the men had already begun, and within a very few minutes the cutla.s.ses and long boarding-pikes had all been distributed, every man having some weapon.

"Now, bo'sun, pipe the men to their stations," sang out the skipper, who appeared to have already matured his plan of action. "Starboard watch forrad, port watch aft, and all the stokers and firemen amidships, under the bridge. Have a couple of hands, too, in the forechains, with a hawser and grapnel, ready to make fast to the ship when we come alongside her."

"Aye, aye, sir," hailed back Masters. "Starboard watch ahoy! Away forrads with you along o' me!"

Our engines had already slackened speed; and, the helm being put down, we came up to the wind, to leeward of the ship and not a half cable's length away from her, broadside-on.

"Stand by there, forrad," shouted the skipper. "Ship ahoy there!

Surrender, or we'll run you aboard."

A wild savage yell came back in reply from a number of half-naked negroes who were mustered on the after part of the vessel, as well as on the forecastle, not a single white man being visible, while her Tricolour flag--so conspicuous before, and which I fancied having seen but half an hour or so previously when looking at her through the telescope--was now no longer to be seen.

Could our worst fears have been realised?

Another savage yell almost confirmed the thought. "Heavens!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker, rendered almost frantic with grief and excitement, and noticing the appalling evidences of the Haytians' triumph, while we stared aghast at each other. "My poor darling child, and those brave fellows I left behind, where are they all; where are they? For G.o.d's sake find them! Alas! alas! those black devils have murdered them all."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A FREE FIGHT.

But hardly had the colonel given vent to his despairing exclamation, expressive alike of his own dismay and ours also, when the bitter feeling of disappointment at being too late, that had for the moment weighed down upon us, crushing our enthusiasm, was suddenly banished and the hearts of all filled with renewed hope and fierce determination.

We were not too late after all!

No.

For as we gazed in blank surprise at the howling mob of Haytians, who appeared to have gained complete possession of the _Saint Pierre_, and were dancing about and gesticulating in their wild, devilish fashion, calling out to us with wild derisive cries, as if mocking at our efforts to save those whom they had already butchered, a bright flame of fire flashed out from the skylight hatch of the doomed ship, followed by the sharp crack of a revolver; and at the same instant one of the half-naked devils ma.s.sed on the p.o.o.p leaped into the air and then fell on his face flat on the deck, uttering a yell of agony as he writhed his limbs in the throes of death.

An exulting cheer broke from all of us in the _Star of the North_ on seeing this, every man gripping his weapon tightly, and setting his teeth hard, ready for action, as the two vessels sidled up nearer and nearer.

Then if word were wanted to spur us on, the skipper gave that word with a vengeance!

"By George! my lads, we're in time yet to save the child and our other white comrades!" he cried out loudly, at the same time jumping into the mizzen rigging, where he hung on the shrouds with one hand, while in the other he held a cutla.s.s which he had hastily clutched up, whirling it round his lionlike old grey head. "See, men, they've retreated to the cabin below, where they're fighting for their lives to the last. Tumble up, my lads, and save them, like the British sailors that you are!

Boarders, away!"

As he said this, Mr Fosset, who was still on the bridge conning the old barquey, having at once ported our helm, on the skipper holding up his cutla.s.s, taking this for a signal, we came broadside-on, slap against the hull of the other ship with a jolt that shook her down to her very kelson, rolling a lot of the darkies, who were grouped aft, off their legs like so many ninepins. At the same moment, before the two craft had time to glide apart, both having way upon them, old Masters forward, and Parrell, the quartermaster, who was stationed in the waist of our vessel, just under the break of the p.o.o.p, hooked on grapnels, with hawsers attached, to the weather rigging of the _Saint Pierre_; and ere the skipper's rallying cry and our answering cheer had died away, drowned by the voice of our escaping steam rushing up the funnels on the engines coming to a stop, now that their duty for the nonce was done, there we were moored hard and fast together, alongside the whilom dreaded "ghost-ship!"

Then with another wild hurrah that made the ringbolts in the deck jingle, and swamped the sound of the rushing steam and everything, the men, closing up behind the skipper, who led us so gallantly over the side, far in advance, brave-hearted old sea dog that he was, bounded across the intervening bulwarks, and were the next instant engaged in all the maddening excitement of a hand-to-hand tussle with the black villains, pistol shot, sword cut and pike thrust coming in turn into play, amid a babel of hoa.r.s.e shouts of rage and cheers and savage yells--mingled with the swish of blows from capstan bars, the loud reports of revolvers fired off at close range and the heavy thud of falling bodies as they tumbled headlong on the deck ever and anon, accompanied by some cry of agony or groan of pain too deep for utterance.

Aye, it was a discord of devilry that must have appeared a veritable pandemonium to the spirits of the air, were any such looking down on the wrathful, sanguinary scene from the clear blue heavens above, all radiant now with a golden glow that came from the west, where the declining sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon!

"Fuaghaballah, may the divvle take the hindmost!" cried Garry O'Neil, leaping after the skipper on to the p.o.o.p of the _Saint Pierre_, a revolver in his right fist and a cutla.s.s in his left, laying about him with a will amongst the ma.s.s of infuriated negroes who tried to resist his rush, clutching at his legs and arms in vain, for he seemed bewitched. "Come on wid ye, me darlints, an' let us make mincemate of 'em, faith!"

I followed in his wake, but a crowd of our men, some of whom had served in the navy and were accustomed to the work, pushed me on one side, going into the thick of the fight themselves, and all was such a jumble of confusion that I hardly knew where I was until "a pretty tidy tap on the top of my head," as Garry would have said, brought back my recollection in a very effective manner, when I found myself right in front of an extremely ugly-looking negro, whose appearance was not improved by a slice having been taken off the side of his face, and from which blood was streaming down all over his black body, and that dest.i.tute of clothing.

I noticed that this gentleman had a long piece of wood like a boat stretcher in his hands, with which he had evidently given me the gentle reminder I have mentioned, being brought to this conclusion by the fact that the rascal had it raised ready to deal another blow.

Putting up my arm instinctively to ward off the impending stroke that I saw coming, I c.o.c.ked and levelled my revolver at him in an instant.

Before I could fire, however, some one behind me shoved me aside again, and crash came a heavy capstan bar down upon the negro's skull, which I heard crack like a walnut sh.e.l.l as he dropped dead on his face.

"Golly, Ma.s.s' Hald'n," exclaimed Accra Prout, our stalwart mulatto cook, whose sinuous arm had thus incontinently settled the dispute between my sable opponent and myself. "I'se guess dis chile gib dat black debble goss, noh ow!"

But ere I could say a word to him for his timely aid, Accra Prout had bounded onward in front, and I then saw he was following Colonel Vereker, who had managed somehow or other, in spite of his lameness, to gain the deck of his old ship along with the rest of us.

Crack, crack, crack, went his revolver with venomous iteration from the other side of the vessel, where he was standing by the bulwarks, close to the hatchway of the companion-ladder leading to the cabin below, which he was apparently endeavouring to reach, while a crowd of Haytians barred his further progress towards those imprisoned in the cabin, whom they thus prevented his releasing, a fresh foe starting up for every one he disposed of, and a rough and terrible fight going on all round him all the time.

"'Top a minnit, Ma.s.s' V'reker!" shouted Accra Prout, darting into the middle of the throng, clearing a pathway for himself with the capstan bar. "I'se here; I'se come help you soon!"

"A thousand devils!" hissed a tall black near by--a man with a large, crinkly, ink-black moustache, and certainly with the most satanic visage I had ever beheld before. "A thousand devils!" repeated he, giving him a thrust with a large knife that pierced poor Accra's arm, and making him drop the capstan bar. "Take care of yourself--beast!"

A cry from the colonel told me who this was.

"Ah, villain, villain!" he sang out, looking him full in the face and grinding his teeth and trying with all his might, but vainly, to get at him through the press of struggling figures by whom he was surrounded.

"I've been looking for you, _Marquis des Coupgorges_!"

The black scoundrel gave out a shrill laugh like that of a hyena, as Colonel Vereker had described it to us when telling his yarn.

"Pardon me, sir, I am here," he yelled out mockingly. "I am here. I do not run away like your white trash! Why don't you come and fight me?

Bah! I spit on you, my fine plantation colonel. When I get at you I will serve you just as I did your sly slave the other day, whom you sent to betray us, though you, yourself, were too great a coward to come amongst us, yes, to come amongst us yourself. Aha! colonel."

He said this in plain English, which language he spoke as fluently as he did French, the native language of Hayti, uttering his abusive threats loud enough for us to hear every syllable; but though I aimed at him while he was speaking twice point blank, and my revolver spoke out quite as loudly as he, while the colonel likewise shot at him and the skipper made a slash in his direction with his cutla.s.s, the miscreant escaped all our attacks without a single wound, dodging away from us amongst his dusky compatriots, who were now pretty thickly mixed up with our men in a fierce _melee_, at the further end of the p.o.o.p, overlooking the waist below.

In the midst of this awful scrimmage there came a wild rush aft of all the remaining blacks who had been engaged with some of the hands amidships, pursued by our second boarding party, led by Mr Fosset and Stoddart, who had made their way over the bows and cleared the fo'c's'le, fighting onward step by step along the upper deck; and hemmed in fast thus, between two fires, the black desperadoes made a last stand, refusing to surrender, or throw down their arms in spite of all promises of quarter on our part.