It would be hard to describe the disorder and terror aboard the Arrow when the convicts realized their mistake.
Benson roared and raved like a madman, and I expected him to vent his anger upon Brown and myself at any moment for having deceived him. But he evidently believed that I was as much astonished as himself at the identity of the stranger. Not being a sailor-man, he did not understand the language of spars and canvas, and had no reason to think that my eyes were any better than his own.
At all events, even if he did intend to settle with me afterward, he now saw that his own life and the lives of his men depended on my being able to run the clipper clear of the English guns.
The Black Roger was pulled down{248} quicker than it takes to tell of it, and the American ensign run up in its place. But it was now too late to correct the error.
The stranger luffed sharply, and soon her main and mizzen yards swung quickly and evenly with the man-o’-war’s precision. Then, letting go his bow-line, he came about and stood across our hawse; at the same time clapping on and sheeting home every rag possible below and aloft.
We were a little to windward of his course now, but he was well ahead. I saw that when he tacked ship it would only be a question of minutes before we were right under his guns, unless we wore ship instantly and ran for it. Even then he would probably be close enough to knock the spars out of us before we could get out of range.
He was evidently determined to find out the meaning of that joke about the flying of a black flag on the high seas.
“Shall we turn and run, or try and pass him to the windward?” I asked Benson, hurriedly, intimating that the former was{249} what I should choose, for I knew he would choose the opposite.
“Head your course, d——n you! If you fail to clear him, you are a dead man,” he roared.
The villain didn’t notice the smile I felt on my lips when he said this, or he would probably have finished with me then and there. He must have been much upset to have talked so wild, for he was usually cool enough.
“Get the men below in the fore-hold,” he bawled to his man, Johnson, and that fellow bundled them down the fore-hatch like sheep, leaving only about a dozen to lounge about the deck as if they were sailors.
By the time this was accomplished we had closed the gap between the vessels to less than half a mile. The Englishman was on the starboard tack and crossing our course with everything drawing. He was heeling over and driving through a perfect smother of foam, and I could see the men running about the decks as they went to stations for{250} stays. He had gotten the weather-gage of us without difficulty.
In a few moments he luffed again on our weather-bow about a quarter of a mile distant. Then, without waiting to use signals, he fired a shot across our course just under our jib-boom end.
“He wants us to heave to,” I said to Benson, for it was evident that the gunboat was not going to be overnice about signalling to men who joked with their colours. Benson ordered me to dip the stars and stripes, but hold steadily on our course. As we came abreast, the stranger came about and lay right on our weather beam with his mainyards aback. I could see that he intended to board us. A second puff flew from an after gun, and with the report a shot tore a great hole through our foresail and whistled away to starboard, but Benson still held on.
I saw great beads of perspiration roll down Brown’s face as he stood watching us driving through the gunboat’s lee. It was a trying moment. If the Englishman fired{251} a broadside into an American ship flying the ensign, it would be no joke for him if all was as it should be on board of her. On the other hand, there was much to justify him in overhauling a ship that had altered her course and set a black flag on sighting him, even if her name was on his register. It seemed an age to me as I stood there, hoping against hope, and I was thinking quickly and coolly of some way to check the ship should she drive past. I knew that if we once went through the Englishman’s lee he would let us pass, so I made ready for the end.
It was not long coming.
We were now but fifty fathoms from the stranger’s broadside, and I could see the men at the guns. I thought to hail him, but I saw that at the first word I would be knocked on the head.
Suddenly a man appeared on the gunboat’s rail with a speaking-trumpet.
“What ship is that?” he bawled, though he might have read the name easily enough,{252} as it was painted on either quarter in letters a foot deep.
“American ship Arrow, Captain Crojack!” roared Benson in return, as he sprang on to the rail at the mizzen.
“Heave to and I’ll send a boat,” came the hail.
“I will not,” roared Benson.
“I will fire on you if you don’t,” replied the stranger.
“I dare you,” roared Benson, in his most menacing tone. There was never anything like it. That man’s coolness and nerve would have made him an admiral had he not been a villain. He had a truculent way of talking that made people think twice before acting against him.
The Englishman hesitated at his audacity, and the ship, driving along with every rag a rap-full, went through the gunboat’s lee. I then saw that we would be allowed to pass free, and I knew that the time for action had come. As Benson turned to jump down from the poop-rail on to the deck I was in front of him, and he saw the look in my{253}
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“I FORCED HIM BACKWARDS TO THE POOP-RAIL.”
eye that told him plainly what I meant to do. Quick as lightning he drew his revolver and fired slap into me and then sprang to the deck. I felt the numbing stroke of the lead, but felt no pain, and the next instant we had closed.
I seized his weapon by the barrel as he fired again, and, although the bullet cut my wrist, it did not loosen or weaken my hold. Then I drove my knife into him with such force that the blade broke close off at the haft.
Dropping the useless hilt, I gripped him suddenly with both arms about his body, holding his arms to his sides. Then, exerting all my strength, I forced him backwards to the poop-rail. He brought up against it for an instant and wrenched his pistol hand free. Then I hurled him over the side. He clutched frantically at me, but I tore his grip loose, and he fell with a splash into the sea.
Glancing forward, I saw Johnson and a couple of men coming aft at full speed to their leader’s help. Then I saw Brown{254} spring suddenly from behind the mizzen, knock the foremost ruffian headlong into the lee scuppers by a blow from an iron belaying-pin, and close with the rest.
Without stopping an instant to see the outcome of the affair, I dashed for the wheel.
The man there had seen the struggle on the poop, and he met me with drawn knife. But I struck him fairly with my right fist upon the point of the jaw, and he dropped like a log of wood.
Grabbing the spokes, I whirled the wheel over, and then plunged down the companionway into the after cabin. I heard a rush of feet on the deck overhead and the sharp cries of Brown, mingled with the hoarse oaths of frantic men. Then I drove full speed against the door of Crojack’s stateroom and crashed into the space within.
That poor, dear girl was—but no matter, there are some parts of every affair that are nobody’s business. In a second I had her in my arms and was leaping up that companionway, while the cries and oaths of the scuffle drew farther aft.{255}
As I cleared the hatchway I saw the quarter-deck free ahead of me, and, giving a yell to Brown to follow, I plunged headlong over the taffrail into the sea. When I reached the surface with the girl in my arms, I turned to look back. I saw Brown hurl his belaying-pin into the crowd that had followed him aft, and as they chased him to the side he leaped over the rail on to the deck-strake. Then, running rapidly along the narrow projection on the vessel’s side, he threw up his hands and took a flying dive astern. When he came to the surface he was over one hundred feet from his pursuers, and the ship was still forging ahead from her headway, although her canvas was all back and everything in a mess aloft.
With a few strokes Brown reached me, and together we held the girl afloat and struck out for the English ship.
Those on board the gunboat had seen something of the fracas, and, as soon as they saw the Arrow luff, they started to get out their boats as fast as willing hands could hoist them.{256}
I swam easily, but I soon found that I was getting very faint, and that my breath seemed to burn like a flame in my throat and chest. I tried to tell Brown that I was going, but I could not utter a word. I remember seeing a boat approaching swiftly, and I remember noticing the even sweep of the oars until they appeared to row over my head and thunder past my ears. The noise was deafening, and my brain felt as if it were splitting with the roar. I put my hand to my head, felt something near it—awoke and found myself lying in a bunk on board of a strange ship. Then a soft hand brushed soothingly over my temples as gently as the breath of the trade-wind. A sweet voice whispered in my ear to lie quiet, and it made me feel so well that, in my upset state, I began to believe that I had at last cruised into the port of missing ships. I soon found, however, that I was not so badly wounded as I had reason to suppose, and that Brown was aboard there with me, his wounded leg doing well in spite of the twitching it received in that last rally.