Part 6 (1/2)
We finished our dinner coantine had reached out well across our fore-foot; and shortly afterwards she tacked, heading well up to meet us She was then about nine miles off, and so, perhaps, twelvea point on our port bow
The wind had freshened a trifle during the forenoon, and was noing a pretty little breeze that sent us along at about six knots; and if it would but freshen a trifle ht between two such craft as the brigantine and ourselves As it was, I was by no h to ensure the proper working of the schooner, while the water was s our adversary aboard without injury to either vessel The iven plenty of ti was served out to thealley fire was extinguished, the azine opened, powder and shot passed on deck, cutlasses and pistols served out, and the latter loaded; and then the creent to quarters The brigantine was by this time within three miles of us; we allowed her to close to within two miles, and then shortened sail to allant-sail, and jibs, hoisted our colours, and fired a gun
CHAPTER TEN
THE AFFAIR OF THE TIGRE AND THE MANILLA
The brigantine was at this time under all plain sail, to her royal andtoward us, close-hauled, on the port tack; but we had no sooner shortened sail and hoisted our colours than she did the sae tricolour at her peak
”Very good,” coly; ”that settles the question of her nationality, at all events, and shows that she is prepared to fight for the prize yonder, that she has soe, for she is a wonderfully handsoain as we are; she will be quite worth the trouble of taking, I believe A ood ith such a fine vessel as that under his feet There she comes round Very pretty! very pretty indeed! Why, she works like a top! And look at the beaht and spread of her spars! Upon my word it seems a pity to knock about such a beauty as that with shot! I suppose it will be ie, but we must knock her about as little as possible I tell you what, George, I believe our best plan will be to as' we shall maul each other fearfully before we coe of grape and canister in on top of their round shot We will run her aboard at once, firing as we touch; board in the smoke, and drive her people below, out of hand”
This was quite in accordance with antine was half as big again as the _Dolphin_; she uns to our eleven, and the chances were that, in a fair stand- up fight, she ht disable us to such an extent as to render her own escape and that of her prize an easy matter So I went round the decks and personally saw to the execution of the skipper's orders, explaining to the ot the word, and cautioning all hands to be ready to follow the skipper and antine's decks the instant that the two vessels were properly secured to each other
The brigantine had gone about while the skipper was speaking totoward us on the starboard tack, and, with the exception of our own gun of defiance, neither vessel had as yet fired It looked alin, in order that she ht of metal; but when the two craft ithin about a quarter of a ave us her whole starboard broadside of seven twelve-pound shot The guns were excellently ai through our sails But the seven perforations in our canvas represented the full extent of the da hit, or so ers were itching to return the fire, the captains of the guns squinting along the sights of their pieces and audibly reht if the skipper would but luff and give them a chance to shohat they could do; but I steadied the them that, if they would but have patience, their chance would come in a few minutes, in answer to which many of them clapped their hands to their cutlasses to make sure that they were loose in their sheaths, while others drew their pistols and carefully exaain immediately that she had fired, and ere now so close that I could see her people busily reloading The two vessels were rapidly nearing each other, and I was in hopes that we should close before it would be possible for theestures, see them to expedite their work, and ere only so our bows, I saw the guns again run out
”Look out, sir,” I shouted to the skipper; ”they are about to fire again! Luff, or they will rake us!”
The skipper signed with his hand, and the helave the wheel a powerful whirl to starboard The schooner swerved round, and almost at the same instant crash came another broadside, slap into us this time
There was a perceptible concussion as the shot struck, followed by a crashi+ng and splintering of wood, two or three piercing shrieks of agony, and fiveout of the dreadful wounds inflicted by the shot and flying splinters Then, as we bore down upon the brigantine, the skipper raised a warning cry I drew my sword and rushed forward to head the boarders froave the word to fire, and, as our broadside rang out, the two vessels crashed together There was an indescribable turoans, shrieks, and execrations on board the Frenchman, and, with a shout of ”Hurrah, lads; follow antine's rail and down on deck
The spacious deck of the French shi+p seeh the thick pall of powder smoke that wreathed and twisted hither and thither in the eddying draughts of wind, but there were great gaps aures, heaped upon each other, so with agony, bearing fearful witness to the havoc wrought by our grape and canister, the discharge of which, at such close quarters, seemed to have stunned and stupefied the French down off the rail I darted a quick glance along the deck, noticed that the skipper was leading his party on board, aft, and then made a cut at the Frenchman nearest me
This woke hiuard the blow, and the next moment ere at it, cut, thrust, and parry, as hard as we could go Our attack being antine's deck, we soon had her crew hemmed in between the skipper's and my own party, and for the next ten ht as one need wish to witness, the Frenchallantly to the call of their captain The hubbub was terrific, the clash of steel, the popping of pistols, the shrieks, groans, and outcries of the wounded, the execrations of the French of the shi+ps together, creating a perfectly indescribable le threatened to be stubborn and protracted, the French every inch of the deck with us I therefore determined to th, of which I possessed a goodly share, would do for us
There was a handspike lying upon the deck, under my feet, which I had tripped over and kicked aside twice or thrice, so, suddenly hitting out with my left fist, I knocked down the man who happened to be at the moment opposed to me, quickly stooped and seized the handspike, dropped ive ht it doith a crash upon the two or three Frenchle to the elbow, but it swept the Frenchh it had been a scythe, and caused those behind to recoil in terror Another flail-like sweep proved equally effective, the cutlasses raised to guard the blows being as useless as so many wands, and when I followed it up with a third it proved too o down beforeaft until they were all jaether like sheep, so closely that they had no rooht effectively The French captain, as I took hi badly in our direction, forced his way through the crowd, and, perhaps regarding me as the chief mischief-maker, levelled a pistol at raze my scalp, but at the same instant my handspike descended upon the unhappy man's head I saw the blood spurt out over his face, and down he went This proved sufficient The Frenchmen nearest me thren their weapons and cried that they surrendered
The cry was taken up by the rest, and the brigantine on
The first thing now to be done was to see to the wounded The carnage had been very great in proportion to the nued, and our men had no sooner sheathed their weapons than they went to work ahastly prostrate forms to separate the wounded from the dead This task was soon completed, and it was then discovered that our loss had not been nearly so great as I had feared; the dead a to eleven, and the wounded to nineteen, three of ere dangerously injured
Our own dead and wounded were carefully removed to the schooner, and then,--the unwounded French been driven below and securely confined in the hold,--the skipper put e of the prize, with a crew of twenty men, and the two craft made sail in company, in pursuit of the merchantman, which was now hull-down in the south-western quarter The moment that the two craft were clear of each other, and the sails trimmed, I set my people to work to convey the wounded French provided with a surgeon, they were quickly attended to When this was done it was found that the French loss totalled up to no less than twenty-seven killed and forty-four wounded, out of a compleement She was a heavily-iven, she had thirtyseen the wounded carried below, the dead thrown overboard, and the decks washed down, I had an opportunity to look about me a bit, and take stock of the noble craft that we had captured She turned out to be the _Tigre_ of Nantes, thirty-four days out, during which she had captured only one prize, namely, the shi+p of which ere now in pursuit She was a brand-new vessel,three hundred and seventy-six tons, oak-built, coppered, and copper fastened; of i only ten feet six inches of water She was extraordinarily fast with the wind over her quarter, running away from the _Dolphin_ easily But I suspected that in a thrash to ard, in anything of a breeze, the schooner would prove to be quite a match for her, with, perhaps, a trifle to spare She azine was cra been the intention of her captain to try his luck, like ourselves, in the West Indian waters
It was about six bells in the afternoon watch e filled away in pursuit of the shi+p, and the sun ithin half an hour of his setting e overtook and brought her to, the _Dolphin_ being at that time some two miles astern of us I knew that there were thirty Frenchmen on board her, but did not anticipate any resistance from the of the kind, although itpossession, would be utterly useless in the end, and only result in loss of life I therefore lowered a boat, and, taking with me ten men armed to the teeth, proceeded on board and secured undisputed possession of the shi+p My first act was to release the crew of the prize, after which the disarantine, and confined below along with their comrades, and while this was still in process of performance the _Dolphin_ joined company, and Captain Winter came on board He fully approved of all that had been done, and directedhi the schooner under the teeht had fallen, dinner was about to be served in the cuddy, and at the earnest invitation of the captain of the shi+p, the skipper accepted a seat at the table
Meanwhile, all three of the craft had been hauled to the wind, on the larboard tack, and were heading to the eastward, the shi+p under everything that her jury-rig would perantine under double-reefed topsails
We now had an opportunity to learn so to our prize, and the circumstances of her capture by the French privateer, the latter being somewhat remarkable The shi+p, it appeared, was nao of spices and other rare co several tons of ivory which she had shi+pped at the Cape, together with a nuers She had here joined the hoone ith her until the springing up of the gale during which we had fallen in with the convoy
During this gale, however, she had laboured so heavily that she had not only lost her fore and allant-reat deal of water, necessitating frequent and long spells at the pu away of the wreck of her top-hareatly exhausted the crew, the result being that, on the night of her capture, the look-out was not quite so keen as perhaps it should have been But after all, as the captain remarked, there really did not appear to be any necessity for the ht look-out beyond as required to provide against their falling foul of any of the other shi+ps belonging to the convoy, and although he adantine and the _Dolphin_, which he had immediately set down as privateers, he did not consider them as enemies, and even if any such suspicion had entered his mind he would not have deeht ht caet what rest they could, keeping only a sufficient nuency He was thus profoundly astonished and chagrined at being awakened about one o'clock in theto find his crew overpowered and safely confined below, and his shi+p in possession of a crew of thirty Frenchht of so heavy a gale, and with so tre, he had been unable to ascertain, the French to explain
Such was the extraordinary story told by the captain of the _Manilla_; and that it was absolutely true there could be no doubt, for we had ourselves seen enough to assure us of that I was greatly disappointed, however, at the captain's inability to explain by what means the Frenchmen had contrived to board the shi+p in the face of such formidable difficulties; for that was precisely the point that had puzzled h, and I resolved to find out, if I could, for such a secret was quite worth the knowing
Captain Winter had deterly continued to steer to the eastward all that night The nextat daybreak I turned to the hands and went to work to coun; and, as the _Manilla_ happened to be well provided with spare spars, we contrived, after two days' hard work, to get her back to soreatly increase her sailing powers that the brigantine and the schooner could shake the reefs out of their topsails without running away froradually hauled round until we had got it well over our starboard quarter, and were boo-sails set