Part 4 (1/2)
”I used to think it a great bore to have to learn Greek when I was coming to sea,” observed Jack; ”but now I find that there is use for it even here, besides helping one on wonderfully with one's own language.”
The mids.h.i.+pmen were not left alone all this time to the care of their Greek friends. The doctor and their s.h.i.+pmates used now and then to look in on them. They found that an attempt was being made to get the s.h.i.+p off, and of course all hands were engaged in the work. Jack wanted to get up and help, but the doctor would not let him, thinking he would be much better employed in helping Murray to look after Adair. They all heard, however, with great interest of the progress of the undertaking.
But one night it came on to blow again harder than ever; a tremendous sea rolled in, and the poor sloop was irretrievably bilged, and in a few days broke up altogether. The three mids.h.i.+pmen were very sorry for this, but they got over the loss of the s.h.i.+p with philosophical resignation, as other mids.h.i.+pmen have under like circ.u.mstances done before them; and with the rest of their s.h.i.+pmates amused themselves very well in shooting snipe and red-legged partridges, in wandering about, in trying to talk Greek, and in doing nothing, till a brig of war arrived and carried them all back to Malta. Captain Hartland and his officers were tried for the loss of his sloop, and honourably acquitted; and Adair and Rogers rejoined the _Racer_, to which, to their great satisfaction, a short time afterwards Murray was appointed. The _Racer_, after a cruise to the westward, came back, and was ordered to proceed to the Greek Islands to a.s.sist in repressing piracy, an occupation to which the descendants of the heroes whose deeds were sung by Homer of old have of late years been somewhat addicted.
”I wonder whether you will take another prize, Paddy,” said Murray with a quiet smile, in which he frequently indulged; but Jack and Terence begged that the subject might not be alluded to.
The _Racer_, before long, fell in with an English merchant brig having a flag of distress flying. The man-of-war hove-to, and the brig sent a boat on board. The poor master who came in her was in a sad plight.
”I have been tricked, robbed, and cruelly treated, sir on the high seas!” he exclaimed, as he appeared on the quarter-deck.
”What has happened? Tell me your story, and I will see what can be done for you,” answered Captain Lascelles.
”Why, sir, I was bound out of Liverpool with a cargo of manufactured goods for Smyrna, when yesterday, as I was standing on my course with a light wind, I fell in with a polacre brig with a signal of distress flying. I hove-to, when her boat came alongside me with a dozen cut-throat looking fellows in her, in red caps, and one very fine gentleman with pistols in his belt, and a sword by his side. He was very polite, and said that he was hard up for several things, but would only trouble me for some biscuit and water. I was very glad to get off so cheap, for I guessed what sort of a calling his was, so I gave him as much as he wanted. He spoke a _lingua franca_, which he found I understood. He said that he had known very unjust complaints being made by merchantmen against his poor countrymen, and that, if I would be so obliging, he would be very thankful if I would give him a certificate that he had treated me and my people kindly, and had only taken a little bread and water. Of course I was very willing, and thought him the mildest and best-mannered of pirates; so I gave it to him at once.
Immediately he got it he put it in his pocket, and, turning to his people, told them to knock down every one of my men who made any resistance, and clapping a pistol to my head ordered me to hand out all my cash. Meantime the polacre ran alongside, thirty or forty cut-throat fellows jumped on board, and very quickly transferred the cargo of the _Pretty Polly_ on board their vessel. When they had completely gutted my brig, the pirate captain made me a polite bow, and thanking me for the certificate, which, he said, he had no doubt would be useful to him, wished me good-day, and returned on board his vessel, leaving all my people with their hands lashed behind them. His followers had amused themselves by painting my poor fellows' faces, and otherwise ill-treating them. One had a tar-brush jammed into his mouth, another a towel stuffed down his throat; and my mate they had almost beaten to death because he had ventured to show fight.”
”Which way did the polacre stand after she left you?” asked Captain Lascelles.
”To the eastward, sir.”
”You would know her again?”
”That I should, among a hundred like craft.”
”Can you come with us?”
”No, sir, but I can let my mate go,” answered the master to Captain Lascelles' last query; ”he knows every bale of the cargo too, and he'll not forget our friend or his craft.”
The mate of the merchantman, Mr Dobbin, came on board, and the frigate continued her course. From the account given of him, Captain Lascelles had little doubt that the pirate was the very man he was in search of, and whose stronghold he had been directed to attack. Among the numerous isles of Greece there are several of small size, with but little room on their summits for cultivation, which have for ages past, from their inaccessible character, afforded a secure retreat to the somewhat piratically disposed inhabitants. The _Racer_ was now in search of one of these respectable little strongholds of piracy.
”Will the Greeks show fight, I wonder?” said Jack. ”I should like just to have a sniff of gunpowder.”
”It may blacken your face more than you expect, youngster,” answered old Hemming, who sat at the end of the berth; ”however, we have not yet found out where the fellows are hid.”
”I hear that the captain has discovered their retreat, and that, if the breeze holds, we are likely to be not far off them this very evening,”
said Murray, who had just come below. ”It is said we are to attack them in the boats.”
”Hurrah! that will be fun!” exclaimed Adair. ”I suppose the captain will let some of us go.”
”Be sure of that, youngsters; the expedition would never succeed without you,” said old Hemming in a sarcastic tone.
Murray's information proved to be right. The frigate stood on for an hour after dark, and then dropped her anchors in a bay to leeward of a rocky island, at no great distance from the one to be attacked. Captain Lascelles' object was to take the pirates by surprise. The boats had, therefore, a long way to pull. They were to proceed in two divisions.
One was to land a body of bluejackets and marines, so as to attack the fort in the rear; the other was to approach it on the sea side, and to endeavour to scale the heights. The second lieutenant and old Hemming had charge of the two divisions; they had each a mids.h.i.+pman with them, and a mate and a mids.h.i.+pman went into each of the other boats. Adair was with the land party. The division to which Jack and Murray belonged was to attack the fort in front. The men gave a suppressed cheer as they shoved off, and then away they pulled as eagerly as if they were going on a party of pleasure. They had a long pull; but many a joke was cut, and many a suppressed laugh was indulged in, till they got so near the spot that silence was imposed on every one. Hemming's party landed at the back of the island. They were to lie concealed as near as they could get to the fort, till the other division threw up a rocket as a signal that they were attacking, and were discovered by the enemy. Jack and Murray were in boats close together. The night was very dark. They could just see that high, rugged, black cliffs towered up above them, and that they were entering a little cove or harbour, through a narrow entrance which put them in mind of a huge mouse-trap. The boats had m.u.f.fled oars; not a sound was heard; but had any one been on the lookout, the phosph.o.r.escent flashes as the blades touched the water would have betrayed them. The boats reached some black slippery rocks.
The crews, led by their officers, leaped out, leaving two boat-keepers in each; and, holding their cutla.s.ses in their teeth, away they scrambled up the steep and rugged cliffs.
CHAPTER FOUR.
ALAS, POOR PADDY!
The night was very dark: Jack and Murray and their companions, in perfect silence, climbed up the rugged precipice which formed the outworks of the island fortress. They knocked their knees and cut their s.h.i.+ns against the sharp points of the rocks, and scratched their hands and faces with the th.o.r.n.y plants which grew out of the crevices; but, undeterred by these obstacles, they boldly scrambled on till they saw some figures moving above them, and a shower of stones came rattling down on their heads.