第62章

"Colonel," said he, "you are an old friend; _you,_ sir, are a new one;but I esteem you highly, and what my young gentlemen chaff you about, you calling all men brothers, and making that poor negro love you instead of fear you, that shows me you have a great heart. My dear friends, I have been unlucky enough to bring my children's fortune on board this ship:

here it is under my shirt. Fourteen thousand pounds! This weighs me down.

Oh, if they should lose it after all! Do pray give me a hand apiece and pledge your sacred words to take it home safe to my wife at Barkington, if you, or either of you, should see this bright sun set to-day, and Ishould not.""Why, Dodd, old fellow," said Kenealy cheerfully, "this is not the way to go into action.""Colonel," replied Dodd, "to save this ship and cargo, I must be wherever the bullets are, and I will too."Fullalove, more sagacious than the worthy colonel, said earnestly--"Captain Dodd, may I never see Broadway again, and never see Heaven at the end of my time, if I fail you. There's my hand.""And mine," said Kenealy warmly.

They all three joined hands, and Dodd seemed to cling to them. "God bless you both! God bless you! Oh, what a weight your true hands have pulled off my heart. Good-bye, for a few minutes. The time is short. I'll just offer a prayer to the Almighty for wisdom, and then I'll come up and say a word to the men and fight the ship, according to my lights."Sail was no sooner shortened and the crew ranged, than the captain came briskly on deck, saluted, jumped on a carronade, and stood erect. He was not the man to show the crew his forebodings.

(Pipe.) "Silence fore and aft."

"My men, the schooner coming up on our weather quarter is a Portuguese pirate. His character is known; he scuttles all the ships he boards, dishonours the women, and murders the crew. We cracked on to get out of the narrows, and now we have shortened sail to fight this blackguard, and teach him to molest a British ship. I promise, in the Company's name, twenty pounds prize-money to every man before the mast if we beat him off or out-manoeuvre him; thirty if we sink him; and forty if we tow him astern into a friendly port. Eight guns are clear below, three on the weather side, five on the lee; for, if he knows his business, he will come up on the lee quarter: if he doesn't that is no fault of yours nor mine. The muskets are all loaded, the cutlasses ground like razors----""Hurrah!""We have got women to defend----"

"Hurrah!"

"A good ship under our feet, the God of justice overhead, British hearts in our bosoms, and British colours flying--run 'em up!--over our heads."(The ship's colours flew up to the fore, and the Union Jack to the mizen peak.) "Now, lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of her (stamping on the deck) swims beneath my foot, and--what do you say?"The reply was a fierce "hurrah!" from a hundred throats, so loud, so deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the creeping-on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather quarter. Arrived within a cable's length, he double-reef'ed his foresail to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next moment a tongue of flame, and then a gush of smoke, issued from his lee bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the _Agra's_ mizen top. He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship. This prologue made the novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, "If we keep him aloof we are done for."The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in succession, hulled the _Agra_ amidships, and sent an eighteen-pound ball through her foresail.

Most of the faces were pale on the quarter-deck; it was very trying to be shot at, and hit, and make no return. The next double discharge sent one shot smash through the stern cabin window, and splintered the bulwark with another, wounding a seaman slightly.

"LIE DOWN FORWARD!" shouted Dodd. "Bayliss, give him a shot."The carronade was fired with a tremendous report but no visible effect.

The pirate crept nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid the carronades, and firing those two heavy guns alternately into the devoted ship. He hulled the _Agra_ now nearly every shot.

The two available carronades replied noisily, and jumped as usual; they sent one thirty-two pound shot clean through the schooner's deck and side; but that was literally all they did worth speaking of.

"Curse them!" cried Dodd; "load them with grape! they are not to be trusted with ball. And all my eighteen-pounders dumb! The coward won't come alongside and give them a chance."At the next discharge the pirate chipped the mizen mast, and knocked a sailor into dead pieces on the forecastle. Dodd put his helm down ere the smoke cleared, and got three carronades to bear, heavily laden with grape. Several pirates fell, dead or wounded, on the crowded deck, and some holes appeared in the foresail; this one interchange was quite in favour of the ship.

But the lesson made the enemy more cautious; he crept nearer, but steered so adroitly, now right astern, now on the quarter, that the ship could seldom bring more than one carronade to bear, while he raked her fore and aft with grape and ball.

In this alarming situation, Dodd kept as many of the men below as possible; but, for all he could do, four were killed and seven wounded.

Fullalove's worth came too true: it was the swordfish and the whale: it was a fight of hammer and anvil; one hit, the other made a noise.