The Noank's Log Part 17

"Then it'll be good-by to every livin' soul that's in her," said the mate. "We'll jest put a stopper on all that!"

"Up-na-tan," shouted the captain, "come down to your gun! We shall be in fair range in three minutes. Then give it to 'em as fast as you can load and fire."

"Ugh!" was all the response they heard, and the Manhattan warrior came down so swiftly that he was at his gun almost before they knew it.

There was a pitiful scene, just then, on board the unlucky Spaniard.

She had many pa.s.sengers as well as much cargo. Women and children were crouching in terror upon her deck, or hiding hopelessly away in her cabins. Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, were gazing in awful despair at the horrible black flag of murder and ruin, which was so evidently nearing them, minute after minute.

"The _Santa Teresa_ is doomed!" groaned the Spanish captain, and then he raised his voice to shout courageously: "Men! we will fight to the last! We'd better go to the bottom, than to let those devils get on board!"

"We'd better die fighting, than stand still to have our throats cut, or to walk the plank!" came back to him from among the men.

Even the women begged for weapons. There were boys and girls who were fiercely handling firearms, and swords, and pikes. Numerous as might be the buccaneers, they were likely to win a costly victory upon the deck of the _Santa Teresa_.

"There goes our mizzenmast," called out her mate to the captain.

"We've no chance left, now!"

"We never had any, Roderigo," replied the captain. "O G.o.d! Here they come!"

"Ho! Captain Velasquez!" came from the man at the wheel. "A sail to larboard! A schooner!"

"A Yankee flag!" said Mate Roderigo. "Captain! She's heading this way!"

"Alas!" mourned the captain. "What can a Yankee sugar-boat do for us?"

A mournful wail went up from his women pa.s.sengers as they heard him, but a tall gentleman near him touched his elbow.

"Captain!" he said, "look again. That American does not seem to fear the black flag. See! She is coming on full sail. What can it mean?"

"Perhaps she does not yet know what they are, Senor Alvarez," sadly responded the captain. "She will be as hopelessly lost as we are."

So thought the buccaneer captain himself, at that moment, for he and his hideous crew were already rejoicing over two triumphs to come instead of one, and a second feast of bloodshed after taking the Spaniard.

The black flag commander was a short, thin, tiger-faced man. He was gaudily dressed, as were also some who seemed to be his lieutenants.

As for his crew, they were of all sorts. They were the offscourings of several nations, including Englishmen, French, Dutch, and Africans.

They were at this moment yelling savagely, as they loaded and fired their guns. Not one of these was larger than a short six-pounder, although there was an absurd number of them, considering the size of the vessel. She was schooner-rigged, but she was much more lightly constructed than the _Noank_. Her breadth of beam was somewhat greater, and she might be speedy. Precisely such craft were sometimes built for the slave trade. They were expected to carry only human cargoes, as a rule, and to make swift runs from African slave barrac.o.o.ns to American markets. Delays in such voyages implied heavy losses of black captives who would surely die in the hold.

"We will take the Yankee schooner first," was the decision of the pirate captain. "We must cripple the Spaniard, so she cannot get away.

Two prizes are better than one. We need that schooner yonder, for our own trade."

Loud laughs and jeers replied to him from many scores of throats, for the buccaneer _Leon_ was positively over-thronged with sea-wolves.

"Steady with the helm there!" rang out on board the _Noank_, as she arose like a duck upon the crest of a long sea.

"Ugh!" said Up-na-tan, as the sheet of flame sprang from the brazen lips of his long eighteen. "Whoop!"

"Struck her!" exclaimed Captain Avery. "That was a good shot!"

"Between wind and water!" shouted Sam Prentice, studying the pirate through his gla.s.s. "It took her as she heeled, and it knocked a hole in her you could roll a barrel through."

Whether or not any bodily harm had been done to any pirate, a chorus of astonished yells and imprecations went up from her crowded deck. All the ears there could hear and understand the crash of timbers under them, which had followed close upon the good shot of Up-na-tan.

"Praise G.o.d!" gasped the captain of the _Santa Teresa_. "Oh! Senor Alvarez! I never thought of that. It is one of the new American colonial cruisers. They carry heavy guns. Their men are as brave as lions. All the saints be merciful and help them to shoot straight!"

"Amen!" groaned the senor. "Laura! My dear wife! The Americans are armed! We have some hope!"

Down upon their knees, as if with one accord, dropped all the despairing women and not a few of the men, the children grouping frantically around their mothers. Loud and earnest were the hurried supplications and bitter was the wailing.

Up-na-tan had not the least idea that he or his gunnery were being prayed for, but he sent his next shot as truly as the first. He aimed at her hull, as near amidships as might be. It was no fault of his that a slight roll of the _Noank_ lifted his line of fire so that his flying iron struck the mainmast of the _Leon_ instead of her ribs. The tall spar was shattered and went over the lee rail with all its top hamper, carrying with it several of the pirate crew who were aloft.

That stunning success of the old warrior was greeted with a storm of wild cheering from the crews of the _Noank_ and the _Santa Teresa_, while more than one woman's voice declared: "Praise G.o.d and all the saints! Our prayers are heard!"

The remark of Captain Velasquez was more seamanlike than religious.

"Santo Domingo!" he exclaimed. "That cripples them! The villains can come no nearer. They are at the mercy of that American. G.o.d bless her! Why does she not use her broadside guns?"

She was not quite ready yet. It was better to ply her long eighteen and keep well away from any harm to her hull or rigging by the short-range pieces of the _Leon_.

"Give it to 'em!" said Captain Avery to Up-na-tan. "Make every shot tell. Now for it, men! Ready with the port broadside! A minute more!

Don't miss, for your lives!"

The swift rush onward of the schooner brought her near enough, even while he was giving his orders, and her six-pounders were worked by very good marine marksmen. The pirates were helpless, and the broadside of the _Noank_ ploughed among them with deadly effect. A second quickly followed, and still she was drawing nearer.

"No surrender!" shouted the pirate captain. "We'll put the Spaniard between us and the American. We must board her! That'll stop their firing. Give it to her!"

There was something like good seamanship in his proposition if he could have carried it out, but Sam Prentice was at the helm of the _Noank_, and he instantly detected the intended manoeuvre.

"Sam!" shouted Captain Avery, as his schooner began to change her course. "Port your helm! Keep her well away! Carry her out o' range!

Don't let 'em knock a splinter out of us!"

"All right, Lyme," responded Sam. "But let's rake 'em. They're losin'

steerage way with all that wreckage draggin'. The redskin has hulled 'em ag'in. Let's cross their bows."

"Go ahead! I'm agreed!" called back the captain. "Not too near, though."

His careful keeping away was to have an important consequence that he did not think of. All was confusion on board the _Leon_, after those broadsides came. Her crew were frantically striving to cut loose the towing wreckage and bring their craft once more to the wind, while, as fast as Up-na-tan and his fellow-gunners could load and fire, the destruction was increasing.

"What's that?" screeched the pirate captain, in reply to one of his crew. "We are sinking, are we? Boats! To the boats! They shall never take us alive. Boats, and board the Spaniard!"

Capture meant only death without mercy, as all of them knew, and some of the cooler miscreants had already begun to get ready the boats. Of these there were four, and the largest of them had been hanging at the davits, ready for lowering.

"Sam," said Captain Avery, soberly, "not one of those fellows must git away. Mercy to them is cruelty to everybody else. If I spare a pirate, I'll feel as if I was murderin' the next man or woman he puts a knife into."

"That's about the way I feel," said Sam; "but I ain't an executioner."

The Spaniards themselves had been doing something with the guns of the _Santa Teresa_, such as they were, old-fashioned, clumsily mounted, short-range, light pieces. Only a few of her crew and none of her pa.s.sengers had been killed or wounded. There had been no report of them made in the general excitement and despondency.

It was almost too soon for any enthusiastic rejoicing, for hardly any one felt sure of deliverance. It was almost as if the wonderful Yankee privateer had fallen from the skies. She and her operations were calling forth tremendous admiration, however, and there was plenty of genuine piety in the fervent thanksgivings that were uttered.