Part 28 (2/2)
”Steer due north!” said he, still like one whose mind was elsewhere.
While the s.h.i.+p was coming about, he gave minute orders to the mates and the gunner, to ensure co-operation in the delicate and dangerous manoeuvres that were sure to be at hand.
The wind was W.N.W: lie was standing north; one pirate lay on his lee beam stopping a leak between wind and water, and hacking the deck clear of his broken mast and yards. The other, fresh, and thirsting for the easy prey, came up to weather on him and hang on his quarter, pirate fas.h.i.+on.
When they were distant about a cable's length, the fresh pirate, to meet the s.h.i.+p's change of tactics, changed his own, luffed up, and gave the s.h.i.+p a broadside, well aimed but not destructive, the guns being loaded with ball.
Dodd, instead of replying immediately, put his helm hard up and ran under the pirate's stern, while he was jammed up in the wind, and with his five eighteen pounders raked him fore and aft, then paying off, gave him three carronades crammed with grape and canister. The rapid discharge of eight guns made the s.h.i.+p tremble, and enveloped her in thick smoke; loud shrieks and groans were heard from the schooner: the smoke cleared; the pirate's mainsail hung on deck, his jib-boom was cut off like a carrot and the sail struggling; his foresail looked lace, lanes of dead and wounded lay still or writhing on his deck, and his lee scuppers ran blood into the sea. Dodd squared his yards and bore away.
The s.h.i.+p rushed down the wind, leaving the schooner staggered and all abroad. But for long; the pirate wore and fired his bow chasers at the now flying _Agra_, split one of the carronades in two, and killed a Lascar, and made a hole in the foresail. This done, he hoisted his mainsail again in a trice, sent his wounded below, flung his dead overboard, to the horror of their foes, and came after the flying s.h.i.+p, yawing and firing his bow chasers. The s.h.i.+p was silent. She had no shot to throw away. Not only did she take these blows like a coward, but all signs of life disappeared on her, except two men at the wheel and the captain on the main gangway.
Dodd had ordered the crew out of the rigging, armed them with cutla.s.ses, and laid them flat on the forecastle. He also compelled Kenealy and Fullalove to come down out of harm's way, no wiser on the smooth bore question than they went up.
The great patient s.h.i.+p ran environed by her foes; one destroyer right in her course, another in her wake, following her with yells of vengeance, and pounding away at her--but no reply.
Suddenly the yells of the pirates on both sides ceased, and there was a moment of dead silence on the sea.
Yet nothing fresh had happened.
Yes, this had happened: the pirates to windward and the pirates to leeward of the _Agra_ had found out, at one and the same moment, that the merchant captain they had lashed, and bullied, and tortured was a patient but tremendous man. It was not only to rake the fresh schooner he had put his s.h.i.+p before the wind, but also by a double, daring, masterstroke to hurl his monster s.h.i.+p bodily on the other. Without a foresail she could never get out of her way. The pirate crew had stopped the leak, and cut away and uns.h.i.+pped the broken foremast, and were stepping a new one, when they saw the huge s.h.i.+p bearing down in full sail. Nothing easier than to slip out of her way could they get the foresail to draw; but the time was short, the deadly intention manifest, the coming destruction swift.
After that solemn silence came a storm of cries and curses, as their seamen went to work to fit the yard and raise the sail while their fighting men seized their matchlocks and trained the guns. They were well commanded by an heroic able villain. Astern the consort thundered; but the _Agra's_ response was a dead silence more awful than broadsides.
For then was seen with what majesty the enduring Anglo-Saxon fights.
One of that indomitable race on the gangway, one at the foremast, two at the wheel, conned and steered the great s.h.i.+p down on a hundred matchlocks and a grinning broadside, just as they would have conned and steered her into a British harbour.
”Starboard!” said Dodd, in a deep calm voice, with a motion of his hand.
”Starboard it is.”
The pirate wriggled ahead a little. The man forward made a silent signal to Dodd.
”Port!” said Dodd quietly.
”Port it is.”
But at this critical moment the pirate astern sent a mischievous shot and knocked one of the men to atoms at the helm.
Dodd waved his hand without a word, and another man rose from the deck, and took his place in silence, and laid his unshaking hand on the wheel stained with that man's warm blood whose place he took.
The high s.h.i.+p was now scarce sixty yards distant; _she seemed to know:_ she reared her lofty figure-head with great awful shoots into the air.
But now the panting pirates got their new foresail hoisted with a joyful shout: it drew, the schooner gathered way, and their furious consort close on the _Agra's_ heels just then scourged her deck with grape.
”Port!” said Dodd calmly.
”Port it is.”
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