CHAPTER IX.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 217, 6 September 1878, Page 7

CHAPTER IX.

Tbe.way.the pirate dropped the mask, showed his black teeth, and bore up in chase, was , terrible : so dilates and bounds the sudden tiger on his unwary prey. There were stout hearts among the officers of the peaceable Agr^, but

d auger iv a uew form shakes the brave, ancl this was their first pirate : their dismay broke out in ejaculations not loud but deep. ( Hush !' said Dodd, dbggedly, * the lady I s * Mrs Beresford had just come oa deck to enjoy the balmy morning. ' Sharpe,' said Dodd, in a tone that conveyed no suspicion to the new comer, ' set the royals, and flying jib. — Port !' ' Port it is,' cried the man at the helm. ' Steer due South.' And, with these words in his mouth, Dodd dived to the gun deck. By this time elastic Sharpe had recovered the first shock, and the order to crowd sail on the ship galled his pride and his^manhood ; he muttered indignantly ' The white feather !' This eased his mind, and he obeyed orders briskly as ever. While he and his hands were setting every rag the ship could carry on that tack, the other officers, having unluckily no orders to execute, stood gloomy and helpless, with their eyes glued, by a sort of sombre fascination, on that coming fate ; and they literally jumped and jarred, when Mrs Beresford, her heart opened by the lovely day, broke in on their nerves with her iight§treble. ** What a sweet morning, gentlemen. After all a voyage is a delightful thing*: oh, what a sp'endid sea ! and the very breeze is warm. Ah, and there's a little ship sailing along : here Freddy, Freddy darling, leave off beating the sailor's legs, and come here and see tbis pretty ship. What a pity it is so far off. Ah ! ah ! what is that dreadful noise V For her horrible small talk, thafc grated on those anxious souls like the mockery of some infantine fiend, was cut short by ponderous blows and tremendous smashing below. It was the -captain staving in water casks : the water poured out at the scuppers. 1 Clearing the lee guns,' said a middy, off his guard.

Colonel Keneally pricked up his ears, drew his cigar from his mouth, and smelt powder. ' What, for action?' said he, briskly. * Where's the enemy V

Fullalove made him a signal, and they went below.

Mrs. Beresford had not heard, or not appreciated the remark : she prattled on till she made the mates and midshipmen shudder.

Realise the situation, and the strange incongruity between the senses and the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its beauty ; beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed, a blue sea, in whose waves the tropical sun seemed to have fused bis beams ; and beneath tliat fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a balmy breeze over those smiling*, transparent, golden waves, a bloodthirsty Pirate bore down on them with a crew of human tigers; and a lady babble babble babble babble babble babble bpbbled in their quivering ears. '

But now the captain came bustling on deck ; eyed the loftier sails, saw they were drawing well, appointed four midshipmen a staff to convey his orders ; gave Bayliss charge of the carronades, Grey of the cutlasses, and directed Mr Tickell to break the bad news gently to Mrs Beresford, and to take her below to the orlop deck ; ordered the purser to serve out beet, biscuit, and grog to all bands., saying, ' Men can't work on an empty stomach : and fighting is hard work ;' then beckoned the officers to come round him. ' Gentlemen,' said he, confidentially, 'in crowding sail on this ship I had hope of escaping that fellow on this tack, but I was, and am, most anxious to gain the open sea, where I can square my yards and run for it., if I see a chance. At present I shall carry on till he comes up within range : and then, to keep the Company's canvas from being, shot to rags, T shall shorten sail ; and to save the ship and cargo and all oar lives, I shall fight while a plank of her swims. Better be killed in hot blood than walk the plank in cold.'

The officers cheered faintly; the captain's dogged resolution stirred up theirs.

The pirate had gained another quarter ol a mile and more. The ship's crew were hard at their beef and grog, and agreed among- themselves it was a comfortable ship j they guessed what was coming, and woe to the ship in that hour if the captain had not won their respect. Strange to say, there were two gentlemen in the Agra to whom the pirate's approach was not altogether unwelcome. Colonel Kenealy and Mr Fullalove were rival sportsmen ; and rival theorists. Kenealy stood out for a smooth bore, and a four ounce ball ; Fullalove for a rifle of his own construction. Many a doughty argument they had, aud many a bragging match ; neither could convert, the other. At last Fullalove hinted that by going ashore at the Cape, and getting each behind a tree at one hundred yards, and popping at one another, one or other would be convinced.

' Well, but,' said Kenealy, c if he is dead he will be no wiser ; besides, to a fellow like me, who has had the luxury of popping at his enemies, popping at a friend is poor insipid work.'

' That is true,' said the other, regretfully. ' But I reckon we shall never settle it by argument.'

Theorists are amazing ; and it was plain, by the alacrity with which these good creatures loaded the rival instruments, tbat to them the pirate came not so much a pirate as a solution. Indeed Keneally, in the act of charging his

piece, was heard to mutter, ' Now, this is lucky.' However, these theorists were no sooner loaded, something occurred to make them more serious. They were sent for in haste to Dodd\* cabin ; they found Jiim giving Sharpe a new order.

•*■ Shorten sail to the taupsles and jib, get the colours ready on the halyards, and then send the men aft.'

Sharpe ran out full of zeal, and tumbled over Rarngolam, who was stooping remarkably near the keyhole. Dodd hastily bolted the cabin door, and looked with trembling lip and piteous earnestness in Kenealy's face and Fullalove's. They were mute with surprise at a gaze so eloquent yet mysterious. He manned himself, and opened his mind to them with deep emotion, yet not without a certain simple dignity. 1 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 ail men brothers, aud making thut poor negro love you, instead'of fear you, that shows me you have a great heart. My dear friends, 1 have . been unlucky enough to bring my children's fortune aboard 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 ancl pledge your sacred words to take it home safe to my wife at Bavkington, if you, or either of you, shonld see this bright sun set to-day, and I should 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 : < Capt. 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 Ivenealy warmly. They all three joined hands, aud Dodd seemed to cling to them. * God bless you both ! God bless you ! Ob, what a weight your true hands have pulled off my heart. Goodbye, 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 lio-hts.'

Sail was no sooner shortened, and the crew ranged, than the captain came briskly on deck, saluted, jumpfed 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 1 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, m the Company's name, twenty pounds prize money to every man belore the mast if we beat him ofl' or outmanoevure him ; thirty if we sink him j and forty if we tow him astern into a friendlj port. Eight guns are clear below, three on the weather side, five on the lea ; for if he knows his business, he will come up on the lea quarter : if he doesn't, that is no fault of yours nor mine. The muskets are all loaded, the cutlasses ground like razors———' < Hurrah !' 5We have got- women to defend -' < Hurrah !' ' A good ship under our feet, the God of justice over our head, British hearts in our bosoms, and British colours flying — run 'em up ! — over our beads.' (The ship's colours flew up 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 V

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 the 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 reefed 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 past the ship. This prologue made tbe novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronadej but Dodd forbade him, 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 eighteenpound ball through her foresail. Most ofthe 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 clean through the stern cabin window, and splintered the.bulwarkwith another, wounding a seamen slightly.

'Lie Dodd.

down forward !' shouted 'Bayliss, give him a shot.'

The carronade was fired with a tremendous report, but no visible effect: The pirate crept nearer, steering in and

—iihnMi'*»t*Mnrtaffaii«Miim««i»»iiniiiiiMiiiiw ■u»i»iiini< mwhh» ■ mnj out like a snake ro avoid the crifronades, 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. Aud all my eighteenpounders dumb I 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 tbe 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, tour were killed and seven wounded.

Fulhdove's word came too true ; it was the swbrdfish and the whale : it was a fight of hammer and anvil ; one. hit, and the < other made a noise. Cautious ancl cruel, the pirate hung on the poor hulking creature's quarters and raked her at point blank distance. He made her pass a bitter time. And her captain ! To see the splintering hull, the parting shrouds, the shivered gear, and hear the shrieks and groans of his wounded ; and he unable to reply in kind 1 The sweat of agony poured down his face. Oh, if he could but reach the open sea, and square his yards, and make a long chase of it ; perhaps fall in with aid. Wincing under each heavy blow, he crept doggedly, patiently, on, towards that one visbile hope.

At last, when the ship cloved with shot, and peppered with grape, the channel opened ; in five minutes more be could put her dead before the wind.

No. The pirate, on whose side luck had been from the first, got half a, broadside to bear at long musket shot 9 killed a midshipman by Dodd's side, cut away two of the Agra's mizen shrouds, wounded the gaff: and cut the gib stay ; down fell that powerful sail into the water, and dragged across the ship's forefoot, stopping her way to the open sea, she panted for ; the mates groaned; the crew cheered stoutly, as British tars do in any great disaster ; the pirates yelled with ferocious triumph, like the devils they looked.

(Tobe Continued.)