Harry Collingwood

“ Orders were shouted on both sides, the sharp cries of the wounded, and the muffled thud of their bodies falling to the deck, began to mingle with the officers’ shouts of encouragement and the fierce defiances of the men. There was a rush, a confused trampling of feet, more pistol-shots, the ring of steel upon steel, and a medley of human voices raised high in the excitement of mortal combat which told us that the pirates were boarding.
“There they are!” exclaimed Woodford, springing to his feet, his example in this respect being followed by the whole of the men. ”

“ The lively little craft at once shot into the wind with her canvas loudly flapping; and this stilled the tumult in a moment.
“’Bout ship!” shouted Courtenay, as every man stopped short in the midst of his gabbling; “’bout ship! there is blue water away there to windward of us, and if we can once reach it we are safe.”
The men sprang at once like cats to their stations, and the immense lateen sail was trimmed over on the other tack with an amount of alacrity which showed how intense was their relief at finding somebody on board equal to the occasion. ”

“ The Santa Catalina is a Spanish ship, and she is manned by a crew who, with her officers, are quite able to take care of her and to uphold the honour and dignity of yonder flag,” pointing as he spoke to the languidly floating ensign at the peak.
“Very good, Don Felix,” said I; “you, of course, know the capabilities of your crew far better than I do. But the schooner there is sure to be crowded with men, who, to my personal knowledge, are as desperate a set of ruffians as ever trod a deck. You will have all your work cut out to beat them off; and if you fail, what is to become of us all? ”

“ However we managed, between us, to keep the boat right side up, and the man seating himself at the oars the craft was slewed round by one powerful stroke until her nose pointed seaward, and away we went, a faint clear silvery cry of “A mas ver! A Dios!” floating after us into the darkness, accompanied by a ghostly flutter of scarcely discernible handkerchiefs. “A Dios!” we shouted back as the two lingering forms vanished in the gloomy shadow of the precipitous slope leading down to the shore; and in another minute or so we shot alongside the felucca and sprang in over her low bulwarks. ”

“ To the northward and westward of us the lagoon narrowed down to about a mile in width, forming a sort of strait between the largest of the islands above-mentioned and a bold projecting promontory; and beyond this strait the horizon was again clear save for certain faint grey blots which our experienced eyes told us were the foliage crowning another group of islands. It was an enchanting prospect for a man to gaze upon; the broad sheet of water upon which we were sailing was perfectly smooth save for the slight ruffle of the breeze upon it ”

“ The cask of rum was hoisted out and lowered into the boat, the pirates tumbled in after it, and, finally, with more profanity mingled with snatches of sea-songs, which were bellowed forth at the top of their voices in the style usual with half-tipsy men, away they went for the shore, followed by the smothered imprecations of Carera and his fervent prayers that the boat might capsize and drown them all. ”

“ It was Courtenay, however, who actually saved the felucca; for at the supreme moment when the little craft plunged into the breakers, and when, if ever, there was the utmost need for coolness and self-possession, what must all hands do but plump down upon their knees, calling upon Saint Antonio and Heaven knows how many other saints to come and help them, Carera himself being one of the foremost to do so, abandoning the tiller meanwhile, and leaving the vessel to take care of herself, at the very moment of all others when she most needed looking after. ”

“ The men strained at the bars until it seemed as though they would burst their very sinews; another reluctant click or two of the pawl showed that something was at length yielding; and then, first with a slow jerky motion which quickened rapidly, and ended in a mighty surge as the men drove the capstan irresistibly round, the bows of the schooner swerved to seaward, the vessel herself righted, hung for a moment, and then glided off the tail of the bank, finally swinging to her anchor, afloat once more. ”

“ The dash of oars in the water instantly followed, the whereabouts of the boat being at once made manifest by the flash of the port-fire upon the wet oar-blades, and upon the foaming ripple which gathered under the bows of the boat; and by the time that half a dozen strokes had been pulled the boat herself—a very large craft, apparently, and crowded with men—became dimly visible like a faint luminous mist driving along the surface of the inky water. ”

“ It was no very long job to prepare the schooner for action, and in twenty minutes everything was ready—the magazine opened, powder and shot passed up on deck, the guns cast loose and loaded, the pikes cut adrift from the main-boom, arms served out to the crew, and every man at his appointed station. By this time the lower yards of the brig had risen level with the horizon, whilst the upper half of the frigate’s topsails could be seen from the deck. ”

“ I saw now that the Dolphin was a doomed ship; that awful chasm in the deck could never be covered in and made secure in time to prevent her foundering; I therefore rapidly cast over in my mind what would be best to do. In a minute I had the necessary idea, which it seemed had at the same moment presented itself to the carpenter, for he staggered toward me and hoarsely shouted into my ear:
“The ship can’t live ten minutes longer, sir. Better cut away the masts so as to leave us something to cling to when she goes from under us.” ”

“ For a moment or two nothing whatever was to be seen but our own decks, with the men standing stripped to the waist at their guns—a row of statues half marble, half ebony, as the glare lighted up one side of each figure and left the other side in blackest shadow—the spars and rigging towering weird and ghostly up into the opaque blackness above us like those of a phantom ship ”

“ The Spaniards greeted the sight with a joyous shout, and, whereas they had hitherto been toiling in grimmest silence, they now burst out with mutual cries of encouragement and a jabber of congratulatory remarks which were almost instantly cut short by the crack of a musket, the ball of which clipped very neatly through the brim of my straw hat. Again the sail flapped, collapsed, flapped again, and then filled steadily out.
“Hurrah, lads!” I exclaimed. “Half a dozen more strokes with the sweeps and the breeze will fairly have got hold of us. ”

“ Now, young sir, I wish you to understand me clearly; I am quite willing to forget everything that has happened—but so must you. I am fully aware that, so long as we all remain on board the same ship, it will be quite impossible that you and my daughter should avoid meeting more or less; and after the scene of this afternoon on the quarter-deck I do not choose to excite comment and curiosity by forbidding your speaking to each other. But let me remind you that I am a parent, and that I possess rights which no gentleman will for a moment dream of infringing or disputing ”

“ And last, though not least, she was a superb sea-boat, and dry as a bone—save for the spray which flew in over her weather cat-head—notwithstanding her extraordinary speed. The men, too, were in ecstasies with her, slapping the rail with their hands and crying enthusiastically, “Go it, old gal!” as she plunged easily into the short choppy sea and sent the spray and foam hissing and whirling many a fathom away to leeward and astern of her. Then, too, I had a fairly good crew, amounting to eighty-six, all told fore and aft, though several of them were fresh from the hospital. ”

“ It is these distracting doubts which are wearing both my life and my reason away, and it was those same doubts which prevented my enjoying your company when you were a child, and almost succeeded in destroying my natural affection for you; it was those doubts which caused me to neglect you as I did when you were most in need of a parent’s love and care; and it was these same doubts again which—forgive me for saying it, Leo—caused me almost to rejoice when I first contemplated the possibility of your being killed in the mutiny. ”

“ Meanwhile, the breeze had crept in until it had overtaken the frigate, which at once filled on the starboard tack, keeping her luff until she had gathered good way, when she squared away and once more came booming into the calm belt, nearing us almost half a mile by this manoeuvre.
“It is no good, excellencies; we shall have to give up!” exclaimed Carera, coming aft. “We are now as close in as we dare go; and if that diabolical frigate fires another broadside at us she will blow us out of the water. Port your helm, señor—hard a-port! the coral is close under our keel.” ”

“ We had barely made good our retreat when the boat arrived alongside, and her occupants were in another moment in possession of the felucca’s deck. A torrent of ribald banter and raillery—of the sort which, coming from a drunken man, is expected to be received as jovial humour, but which a chance word or inadvertent glance of misappreciation may in a moment cause to be exchanged for expressions and acts of the most diabolical ferocity—was at once discharged by these ruffians at Carera and his crew, who, anxious to propitiate their most unwelcome visitors, did their best to retort in kind ”

“ And as to yourself, my dear fellow, make your mind easy; you are a far better navigator than you think yourself, and what little help you may need to render you perfect I will cheerfully give you; a week’s hard study on your part will be quite sufficient to qualify you for going anywhere.”
As we rapidly approached the wharf, the noble proportions of the Dolphin became every moment more apparent, and when at length the gig dashed alongside and I passed in through the wide gangway I felt as though I had a frigate under me. ”

“ I am grieved to notice that it is sometimes the fashion among lads, ay, even in some cases those of respectable parentage, to freely garnish, as they think, their conversation habitually with language of the most vile and disgusting description. They perhaps think it manly to do so, and imagine that a bold reckless style of conversation, freely besprinkled with obscenity and profanity, will excite admiration. But if they think this they are making as great and grievous a mistake as they are ever likely to make in the whole course of their lives. The feeling excited is not admiration ”

“ I replied.
“Oh!” said he, somewhat less sternly, “you are Mr Lascelles, of the schooner Foam, are you? And pray, sir, where is Mr O’Flaherty, that you should find it necessary to discharge his functions? He is not wounded, I hope?”
“I regret to say, sir, that he is dead,” said I.
“Dead!” he repeated; “tut, tut; that is bad news, indeed. Here, come into my cabin with me, and sit down; you look as pale as a ghost, and have been wounded yourself, if that fag-end of sticking-plaster which I see projecting beneath the rim of your hat has any significance. ”

“ I placed myself at the tiller, Carera took up a position on the stem-head, conning the felucca, and Courtenay devoted all his energies to the encouragement of the men as they laboured at the sweeps. Meanwhile, the breeze was gradually creeping nearer to us every minute, which, whilst an advantage in so far as it lessened the time during which the men would have to toil at the sweeps, was more than counterbalanced by the disagreeable fact that it would enable the frigate to approach so much the nearer to us before she in her turn became becalmed. ”

“ Don Luis looked at them, then at me, and smiled.
“You English are a most extraordinary people,” he said. “I believe you are never more happy than when fighting. Those men of yours look more like a parcel of schoolboys preparing for a holiday than men making ready for a desperate life-and-death struggle. But I must be brief; there is no time for anything like gossip now; the pirate schooner is within two miles of us, and Don Felix expects her to open fire immediately. ”

“ You are alive and unharmed this morning, whilst others have gone to render an account of their manifold misdeeds—their countless acts of oppression and cruelty—before that Judge in whose sight their lives are not one whit more valuable than the lives of those whom they have goaded and driven to death—ay, and to worse than death—to such frantic desperation as can only be allayed by the shedding of blood like water. ”

“ So well-furnished indeed was the Pinta in this respect that anyone entering her cabin might naturally have supposed himself to have been on board a privateer, or something worse. In the first place there was a rack stretching right athwart the aftermost bulkhead, in which were stacked a dozen good serviceable-looking muskets, their barrels brightly polished, the stocks carefully oiled, and new flints in every one of the locks. These were flanked on each side by a sheaf of some half a dozen boarding-pikes, the points of which had been ground almost to the sharpness of a needle. ”

“ Fireflies, visible only as tiny sparks of light, flitted and glanced and whirled hither and thither against the black shadows of the foliage, whilst the black water, so highly phosphorescent that every tiniest ripple was edged with its own individual and separate line of silvery fire, glowed and darkened, sparkled and flashed, and at times seemed to fairly throb with liquid lightning as the countless living creatures within it stirred its sleeping depths. ”

“ It was my intention to work close along the whole of the southern coast of Saint Domingo on our eastward passage; and this we did, looking in first behind the island of a-Vache, where we were lucky enough to descry a French privateer brigantine snugly anchored under the shelter of a small battery. As there is nothing like making hay whilst the sun shines, we at once headed straight for the anchorage, and, trusting to the extreme roguishness of our own appearance to put our enemies off their guard, began to shorten sail in a somewhat slovenly fashion, as though we were about to bring up. ”