The Iron Pirate Part 25

"You long-jawed bully, what d'ye mean by that?" cried the skipper, white with anger; and then he twisted the fellow's arm until I thought he would have broken it. Nor did he let him go until he had kicked him the length of the p.o.o.p, and tumbled him, torn and bleeding, upon the main hatch below.

"Lay your finger on the boy again, and I'll give you six dozen," he said quietly; and then he came to my side, and he stood for a long while leaning on the bulwarks and gazing over towards the receding sh.o.r.e. He spoke to me at last, but in a more gentle tone than I had ever heard from him--indeed, there was almost kindliness in his voice.

"Do you make out anything of a big ship yonder?" he asked, pointing almost abaft.

"I see nothing but the hull of a collier?" said I.

"Then it's my sight that's plaguing me again," and he continued to look as though he had some great purpose in satisfying himself, while from the fo'castle there came shouts of laughter and singing. When he heard this he spoke again, but almost to himself.

"Shout away, you sc.u.m," he muttered; "shout while you can. It'll be a different tune to-morrow."

I was leaning then on the bulwarks almost at his side, and presently he addressed himself directly to me, and earnestly.

"We had a narrow shave to-night. It's put me out to leave the doctor, for he was the best of them--one of the only men that I could reckon on. If it hadn't been for him and the Irishman, this lot would have swung long ago--maybe they'll swing now. The hounds have got the scent; and, G.o.d knows, they will follow it! It's lucky for some of them that I had twenty pairs of eyes open for me in London, and knew the Government's game in time to get this tender out of Ramsgate; but you mark me, boy, there's trouble coming, and thick. I've gone out without a gallon of oil again, and by-and-by we're going to run for our necks, every man of us."

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"What makes me think that?--why, my senses. They'll follow us from some port here, as sure as the wind's rising; maybe they'll let us get aboard the ship, and then that'll be the beginning of it. But if we only hold out with the oil, then let 'em take care of themselves----"

"And if not?"

He shrugged his shoulders and was silent; but anon he asked again what I thought of a long, rakish-looking steamer lying some miles away on the starboard quarter, and when I had satisfied him he said--

"Come downstairs and get some wine into you, boy"; and I went below to his small and not very elegant cabin, where he put champagne and gla.s.ses on the table.

"Let's drink against the thirst we'll have to-morrow," cried he, getting quite jovial, and pouring the Pommery down his throat as though it had been beer. "This is an occasion such as we shan't often know--the old ship against Europe, and one man against the lot of them!

Why, lad, if it wasn't for the thought of the oil, I'd get up and dance. The lubbers could no more lay a finger on me, given fair fight, than they could touch the moon. You see, it's just the oil that Karl's feared all along; drive by gas, and you want twenty times the grease in your cylinders that you'll ever need in a steam-ship. If there hadn't been that break-up north, we'd never have been in this hole; but that's one of the risks of a game like this, and I'll play my hand out."

He went on to talk of many other things, but as he did not speak of his own past, or of the ship, I began to nod with sleep; and presently I found him covering me up with a rug and turning out the lamp. I was dead worn-out then, and must have slept twelve hours at the least, for it was afternoon when I awoke, and the sun streamed in through the skylight upon a table whereon dinner was set. But Black was not in the cabin, and I went above to him on the bridge, which he paced with a restless step and a betraying haste. There was no land then to be seen; but the clear play of sparkling waves shone away to the horizon over a tumbling sea, upon which were a few ships. Upon one of these he constantly turned his gla.s.s; she was a long screw steamer, showing two funnels and three masts, away some miles on the port quarter, and I saw at once that from this ship the Captain got all his fear.

"Do you make her out?" he said in a big whisper directly I came up to him, and then, hushing me, he added--"Keep your tongue still, and say nothing. That's a British cruiser in pa.s.senger paint. She's come out from Southampton."

This was about the very best bit of news he could have given me; but I did not let him see that I thought so, for I had eyes only for the ship in our wake. She was a long boat of the _Northumberland_ cla.s.s; but there was nothing whatever about her to betray her disguise, since she had all the look of an Orient, or a P. and O. liner, and was too far away from us to permit a reading of her flag. The men evidently had not seen her, or took no notice of her if they had; but John upon the bridge followed the movements of Black with curiosity, and once or twice turned his own gla.s.s on the black hull just visible above the horizon. He had forgotten the episode of the previous night--when, undoubtedly, he was full of drink--and was almost as troubled as the skipper.

"What's he up to?" he asked me in a whisper, as Black kept turning his gla.s.s towards the hull of the other ship. "Did he get any liquor in him last night? I never saw him this way before."

And again, after a pause--

"Have you got any eyes for that ship? What's he fixing her like that for? She's no more than an Orient boat by her jib, and if she lays on her course we'll make it warm for her outside."

Black heard his last words, and turned round upon him savagely--

"Yes," he said, "it'll be warm enough out there for them as lives as well as for the dead. Ring down for more firing; what's the lubber at?--he's not giving her thirteen knots."

By-and-by all the crew began to observe Black's anxiety and to crowd to the starboard side; but he told them nothing, although he never left the bridge, and cursed fiercely whenever the speed of the tender slacked at all. It was somewhat perplexing to me to observe that, while the great ship was undoubtedly following us, she did not gain a yard upon us. During the whole of that long afternoon, and through the watches of that early night, when I remained upon the bridge with Black, we kept our relative distances; but, do all we could, the other would not be shaken off; and when, after a few hours' sleep, I came on deck at the dawn of the second day, she was still on our quarter, following like the vulture follows the living man whose hours are numbered.

"There's no humbug about her game," cried Black, whose face was lined with the furrows of anxiety and pale with long watching; "she means to take us on the open sea, and she's welcome to the course. If I don't riddle her like a sieve, stretch me!"

This strange pursuit lasted three days and into the third night; when I was awakened from a s.n.a.t.c.h of sleep by the firing of a gun above my head. I dressed hurriedly and got on deck, where my eyes were almost blinded by a great volume of light which spread over the sea from a point some two miles away on our starboard bow. We had been in the Atlantic then for twenty-four hours, and I did not doubt for a moment that we had reached the nameless ship. Had there been any uncertainty, the wild joy of the men would have banished it. From windla.s.s to wheel our decks presented a scene of wild excitement. Above all the shouting, the raucous laughter, and the threats against the cruiser--whose lights showed then less than a mile away--I heard the voice of Black, singing: "Hands, stand by to lower boats!" and the yelping of "Roaring John." It seemed at that moment that we should gain the impregnable citadel without suffering one shot, and while I should have been happier if the attack had been upon the tender, and my chances of gaining the Government ship thus more sure, I was in a measure carried away by the excitement of the position, and I verily believe that I cheered with the others.

At that moment the cruiser showed her teeth. Suddenly there was a rush of flame from her bows, and a sh.e.l.l hissed above us--the first sign of her attempt to stop us joining our own ship. The poor shooting excited only the derision of the men, who set up their wild "halloas!" at it; and again, when a second shot struck the aft mast and shivered it, they were provoked to boisterous merriment. But we could make no reply, and those on the nameless ship could not fire, for we lay right between them and the other.

"Hands, lower boats!" yelled Black at this moment, and then, leaving no more than ten or fifteen men in the steamer, he led the way to the launch.

We were now no more than a quarter of a mile from safety, but the run was full of peril, and, as the launch stood out, the nameless ship of a sudden shut off her light, if possible to shield us in the dark. But the pursuer instantly flooded us with her own arc, and, following it with quick shots, she hit the jolly-boat at the third. Of the eight men there, only two rose when the hull had disappeared.

"Fire away, by thunder!" cried Black, shaking his fist, and mad with pa.s.sion; "and get your hands in: you'll want all the bark you've got just now."

But we had hauled the men aboard as he spoke, and, though two sh.e.l.ls foamed in the sea and wetted us to the skin in the pa.s.sage, we were at the ladder of the nameless ship without other harm, and with fierce shouts the men gained the decks.

For them it was a glorious moment. They had weathered the perils of a city, and stood where they could best face the crisis of the pursuit.

It was a spectacle to move the most stolid apathy: the sight of a couple of hundred demoniacal figures lighted by the great white wave of light from the enemy's ship, their faces upturned as they waited Black's orders, their hands flourishing knives and cutla.s.ses, their hunger for the contest betrayed in every gesture. I stood upon the gallery high above the seas, and looked down upon the motley company, or along the s.p.a.ce of the hazy arc to the other vessel, and I asked myself again and again, What if we shall win--what if this desperate adventurer shall again outwit those who have coped with him, and hold his mastery of the sea?

Nor did it seem so improbable that he would. Those upon the Government cruiser betrayed their uneasiness every moment by casting the beams of their searchlight on every point of the horizon; but their signal was unanswered, no a.s.suring rays shone out in the distant blackness of the night. We two were alone upon the Atlantic, there to fight the duel of the nations; and I confess that in the unparalleled excitement of the moment I rejoiced that it was so; I hoped, even, that the nameless ship would carry the hour, so much had she fascinated me, so astounding were her achievements.

This truly was the critical moment in Black's career. He stepped on the bridge to find Karl wringing his hands, and "Four-Eyes" was no less uneasy.

"Faith, sorr," said he, as soon as we had come aboard, "it's bad times intoirely if ye've no oil--we've been working two engines for three days, and we'll be sore put to ut to kape the third going, if ye can't mend us."

Karl emphasised the words with stamps and tears and frantic gesticulation--not lost upon Black, who advanced to the front of the bridge, and called for silence in a voice that would have split a berg.

A deathlike stillness succeeded; you could hear the wash of the waves and the moaning of the wind: two hundred upturned faces shone ghastly white under the spreading beams which the cruiser's lantern cast upon them.

"Boys," cried Black, "yonder's a Government ship. You know me, that I don't run after war-sc.u.m every day, for that's not my business. But we're short of oil, and the cylinders are heating. If we don't get it in twenty-four hours, there'll be devil's work, and we shan't do it.

Boys, it's swing or take that ship and the oil aboard her--which'll you have?"

There was no doubt about their answer--there could be none. In one way it was almost as if the cruiser herself gave reply, for there was the roar of a great gun when Black had finished speaking, and a shot hissed from above our p.o.o.p and burst in the seas beyond us. A mighty shout followed, but was converted instantly into a cry of warning, as the forward hands sang out--

"Look out aft--the torpedo!" and other hands took up the cry, yelling "The torpedo! The torpedo!"

The tiny line of foam was just visible for a second in the way of the light; but, the moment the cruiser had shot it from her tube, she extinguished her arc, leaving us to light the waters with our own.

There was no difficulty whatever in following the line of the deadly message, and for a moment every heart, I doubt not, almost stood still.

"Full speed astern!" roared Black, forgetting himself, but instantly ringing the bell, and the nameless ship moved backwards, faster and yet faster. But the black death-bearer followed her, as a shark follows a death-ship; we seemed even to have backed into its course--it came on as though to strike us full amidships.

The excitement was almost more than I could bear; I turned away, waiting for the tremendous concussion; I heard awful curses from the men, the cowardly shouting of "Roaring John," the blasphemies of "d.i.c.k the Ranter." I knew that Black alone was calm; and at the last I fixed my eyes upon him when the head of the torpedo's foam was not thirty yards away from us. In that supreme moment the power of the man rose to a great height. He grasped the situation with the calmness of one thinking in bed; and waiting motionless for some seconds, which were seconds almost of agony to the rest of us, he cried of a sudden--

"Hard a-starboard!" and the helm went over with a run.

The movement was altogether superb. The great ship swung round with a majestic sweep, and as we waited breathlessly, the torpedo pa.s.sed right under our bow, missing the ram by a hair's-breadth. The reaction was nigh intolerable; the men waited for some seconds silent as the voice-less; then their cheers rang away over the seas in a great volume of sound, which must have re-echoed down in the caverns of the Atlantic.

"You, d.i.c.k," ordered Black, "return the lubbers that, or I'll whip you;" and d.i.c.k, who had got his wits back, replied--

"Skipper, if I dinna dive into their internals, gie me sax dozen."

"Hands to quarters," continued the skipper; "let no man show himself till I call, then him as doesn't fight for all he's worth, let him prepare to swing."

With this there fell a great busyness, the men going, some to the turrets, some to the magazines below.