Wild Adventures round the Pole Part 12

Now let me, with one touch of the fairy wand the storyteller wields, waft my readers on board the pirate herself. Fear not, for we will stay there but a brief s.p.a.ce of time indeed. The tall and by no means unprepossessing form of the captain, armed _cap-a-pie_, is leaning against the rudder-wheel, one spoke of which he holds. His mate is by his side, gla.s.s in hand, examining the _Arrandoon_, now only a few miles off.

"Ha! ha!" says the latter; "it is the same big craft we tried to strand; and she's had dirty weather, too--foretop-gallant mast and jibboom both gone. She is flying a signal of distress."

"Distress? Eh? Ha! ha! ha?" laughed the pirate. "Isn't it funny?

She'll have more of it; won't she, matie mine?"

The mate laughed and commenced to sing--

"'Won't you walk into my parlour?'

Said the spider to the fly?"

"She's evidently a whaler, crow's-nest and all," he said.

"Well," said the captain, "we'll _w(h)ale_ her;" and he laughed at his own stupid joke.

"I say there, old lantern-jaws," he bawled down the companion.

"I reckon," said a Yankee voice, "you alludes to this child."

"I do," cried the captain; "and look ye here. We are going to fight and so forth. If we're like to be bested, scupper the old man at once.

D'ye hear?"

"Well, I guess I ain't deaf."

"Very well, then. Obey, or a short shrift yours will be."

"Why, captain," said the mate, "she knows us. She has put about, and is bearing away to the nor'-nor'-west."

"Then hands up-anchor," cried his superior. "Crowd all sail; she can't escape us in her crippled condition."

"Ah! captain," the mate remarked, "had you taken my advice and given that pretty but sly minx the _sack_, ere she gave you the _slip_, that whaler would have been ours before now."

"Silence," roared the captain. "On that subject I will not hear a word.

She shall be mine yet--or her father dies."

With the exception of the few sentences bawled down the companion, all this was said in Danish, and my translation is a free one.

And so the chase commenced, and seawards before the pirate, in an apparently crippled condition, staggered the _Arrandoon_.

"How far do you intend to bring her out?" asked Allan.

"Ten miles clear of these islands, anyhow," replied McBain, "then she won't be able to play any pranks with us. Boys," continued McBain, a few minutes afterwards, "I'm going to write letters--home."

There was nothing very unusual in the tone of his voice as he spoke these words, but there was a meaning in them, nevertheless, that was perfectly understood by our young heroes. They were not long, then, before they were each and all of them seated by the saloon table, inditing, it might or might not be, the last communications to the loved ones at home they _ever_ would pen. They were performing a duty--a sad one, perhaps, but still a duty; they were about to fight in a good cause, doubtless, but the result of the battle was uncertain. The _Maelsturm_, for that was the name of the pirate, was better--or rather, I should say, more copiously--manned than the _Arrandoon_, and though not so large a ship, she had more guns; her crew too fought with halters round their necks, and would therefore doubtless fight to the bitter end. The only advantage--and it was a great one--possessed by the _Arrandoon_ was steam power. Hours went by, and the chase was still kept up. It was six bells in the forenoon watch, and the _Maelsturm_ was hardly a mile astern. Our men had already had dinner, and were all in readiness--waiting, when, borne towards them over the wind-rippled waters from the pirate ship, came the quick, sharp rattle of a kettledrum. One roll, two rolls, three.

"At last," said McBain, "they are beating to quarters."

A puff of smoke from the bow of the pirate, the roar of a gun, and almost immediately after a round shot ricocheted past the quarter of the _Arrandoon_.

The battle was begun.

CHAPTER TEN.

"DOWN WITH THE RED FLAG AND UP WITH THE BLACK!"--VICTORY--AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE--HIE, FOR THE NORTH.

If the crew of the _Arrandoon_ needed any stimulus to fight the pirate, beyond the short speech that their captain had made them, it certainly was given them when the order was issued on board the latter craft, "Down with the red flag and up with the black!" and the broad, white-crossed ensign of merchant Denmark gave place to the hideous skull and cross-bones flown by sea marauders of all nations. She had rounded, too, in order to fire her broadside guns, or this would hardly have been visible. Perhaps the pirates imagined it would strike sudden fear into the hearts of those they had elected to consider their foes. Hatred and loathing it certainly inspired, but as to fear--well, in the matter of scaring, British sailors are perhaps the most unsatisfactory cla.s.s of beings in the world.

For the next quarter of an hour the doings on board the _Arrandoon_, as seen from the pirate's p.o.o.p, must have considerably astonished--not to say puzzled--the officers of that ship, for in that short s.p.a.ce of time what had appeared to be a sadly disabled vessel in distress, had hoisted a funnel, lowered a screw, and, while sail was being taken in, moved slowly away beyond reach of her guns. Not for long was she gone, however. She rounded almost on her own length; then, bows on, back she came, black and grim, athirst for vengeance. But the pirate was no coward, and broadside after broadside was poured into the advancing ship, without eliciting a single shot save one.

This was the shot--the second shot--that McBain had promised Magnus. It went roaring through the air, crashed through the _Maelsturm's_ bulwarks midships, and smashed a boat to flinders.

Magnus Bolt, or "Green," as he was better known, old as he was, was by far the best shot in the ship. He and Mitch.e.l.l, the mate, a man of eagle eye and firm of nerve, were the gunners proper, and fired every gun in the fight that followed the second shot. If it were a starboard broadside they were there; if a port, they but crossed the deck to take deadly aim and fire it.

"Remember, gunners," cried McBain, "we've got to take that ship, and not to sink her; so waste not a shot between wind and water?"

On came the vessels, bow to bow, as arrow might meet arrow, and when within two hundred yards of each other, the _Maelsturm_ heading north and west, the _Arrandoon_ going full speed south and east, the pirate delivered her broadside, and immediately luffed up and commenced firing with her bow guns. She could get no nearer the wind, however. To go on the other tack would be but to hasten the inevitable.

"Hard a port! Ease her a little! Steady as you go!" were the orders from the quarter-deck of the _Arrandoon_. "Small-arm men to fire wherever head or hand is visible."

Now the _Arrandoon_ delivers her broadside as she again comes parallel with the _Maelsturm_, whose sails are all a-shiver. This just by way of confusing her a little. There is worse to come, for the order is now given to double-shot the port Dalgrens with canister. Away steams the _Arrandoon_, and round goes the _Maelsturm_. Ah! well he knows what the foe intends, but he will try to outmanoeuvre her if he can. But see!

the _Arrandoon_ is round again; there will be no escaping her this time.

Fire your bow guns, Mr Pirate; fire your broadside, you cannot elicit a reply.

"Sta'board!" cries the captain; "starboard?" he signals, with his calm, uplifted arm. "Starboard still! steady now!" Then, in a voice of thunder, as they rounded the port quarter of the pirate, and, in spite of all good handling, got momentarily broadside on to her stem, "Stand to your guns--_Fire_!"

When the _Arrandoon_ forged ahead clear of the smoke, it was evident from the confusion on board the _Maelsturm_, and the dishevelment of running and standing rigging, that the havoc on her decks must have been terrible. She was not beaten, though, as a gun from her broadside soon told.

"We'll end this," said the captain to Rory, by his side, who had const.i.tuted himself clerk, and was coolly taking notes in the very thick of the fight, while shot roared through the ship's rigging and sides, men fell on all hands, and splinters filled the air. "We'll end it in the good old fashion, Rory. Stand by to grapple with ice-anchors!

Prepare to board!" Now Allan and Ralph, who had been below a.s.sisting the surgeon, heard that word of command, and, just as the sides of the two ships had grated together, after firing their last broadsides, they were both, sword in hand, by their captain's side.

McBain and our heroes were the very first to leap on to the blood-slippery decks of the pirate. The crew of that doomed ship fought for a time like furies--for a time, but only for a time. In less than five minutes every pirate on board was either disarmed or driven below, and the _Maelsturm_ was the prize of the gallant _Arrandoon_, and her captain himself lay bound on the quarter-deck.

But the commander of this pirate ship was the very last man on board of her to yield. Even when the battle was virtually ended, as fiercely as a lion at bay he fought on his own quarter-deck, McBain himself being his antagonist. The latter could have shot him down had he been so minded, but he was not the man to take a mean advantage of a foe. The pirate was taller than McBain, but not so well built nor so muscular.

They were thus pretty well matched, and as they fought, round and round the quarter-deck, a more beautiful display of swordsmanship was perhaps never witnessed. Once the pirate tripped and fell, McBain lowered his weapon until he had regained his feet, then swords clashed again and sparks flew. But see, the captain of the _Arrandoon_ clasps his claymore double-handed; he uses it hatchet fashion almost. He looks in his brawny might as if he could fell trees. The pirate cannot withstand the shock of the terrible onslaught, but he makes up in agility what he lacks in strength. He is borne backward and backward round the companion, McBain "showering his blows like wintry rain;" and now at last victory is his, the pirate's sword flies into flinders, our captain drops his claymore and springs empty-handed on his adversary, and next moment dashes him to the deck, where he lies stunned and bleeding, and before he can recover consciousness he is bound and helpless.

Ralph, Allan, and Rory, none of whom, as providence so willed it, are wounded, and who had been silent spectators of the duel, now crowd around their captain, and shake his willing hand.

"Heaven," says McBain, "has given the enemy into our hands, boys, but there is now much to be done. Let us buckle to it without a moment's delay. The wounded are to be seen to, both our own and the pirate's, the decks cleared, and everything made shipshape, and, if all goes well, we'll anchor with our prize to-morrow at Reikjavik."

"And the clergyman, captain, the clergyman, the poor girl's father?"

exclaimed Rory.

"Ay, ay, boy Rory," said McBain; "he is doubtless on the vessel. We will proceed at once to search for him."

If fiends ever laugh, reader, it must be with some such sound as that which now proceeded from the larynx of the pirate captain; if fiends ever smile, it must be with the same sardonic expression that now spread itself over his features. All eyes were instantly turned towards him.

He had raised himself to the sitting position.