Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) 📕

The lieutenant and his sailing master stood together on the roof of the cabin deckhouse. The sailing master held a glass to his eye. “She carries a long gun, sir,” he said, “and four carronades. She’ll be hard to beat, sir, I do suppose, armed as we are with only light arms for close fighting.”

The lieutenant laughed. “Why, Brookes,” he said, “you seem to think forever of these men showing fight. You don’t know them as I know them. They have a deal of bluster and make a deal of noise, but when you seize them and hold them with a strong hand, there’s naught of fight left in them. ‘Tis like enough there’ll not be so much as a musket fired to-day. I’ve had to do with ‘em often enough before to know my gentlemen well by this time.” Nor, as was said, was it until the very last that the lieutenant could be brought to believe that the pirates had any stomach for a fight.

The two vessels had reached perhaps within a mile of the pirate sloop before they found the water too shoal to venture any farther with the sail. It was then that the boat was lowered as the lieutenant had planned, and the boatswain went ahead to sound, the two vessels, with their sails still hoisted but empty of wind, pulling in after with sweeps.

The pirate had also hoisted sail, but lay as though waiting for the approach of the schooner and the sloop.

The boat in which the boatswain was sounding had run in a considerable distance ahead of the two vessels, which were gradually creeping up with the sweeps until they had reached to within less than half a mile of the pirates—the boat with the boatswain maybe a quarter of a mile closer. Suddenly there was a puff of smoke from the pirate sloop, and then another and another, and the next moment there came the three reports of muskets up the wind.

“By zounds!” said the lieutenant. “I do believe they’re firing on the boat!” And then he saw the boat turn and begin pulling toward them.

The boat with the boatswain aboard came rowing rapidly. Again there were three or four puffs of smoke and three or four subsequent reports from the distant vessel. Then, in a little while, the boat was alongside, and the boatswain came scrambling aboard. “Never mind hoisting the boat,” said the lieutenant; “we’ll just take her in tow. Come aboard as quick as you can.” Then, turning to the sailing master, “Well, Brookes, you’ll have to do the best you can to get in over the shoals under half sail.”

“But, sir,” said the master, “we’ll be sure to run aground.”

“Very well, sir,” said the lieutenant, “you heard my orders. If we run aground we run aground, and that’s all there is of it.”

“I sounded as far as maybe a little over a fathom,” said the mate, “but the villains would let me go no nearer. I think I was in the channel, though. ‘Tis more open inside, as I mind me of it. There’s a kind of a hole there, and if we get in over the shoals just beyond where I was we’ll be all right.”

“Very well, then, you take the wheel, Baldwin,” said the lieutenant, “and do the best you can for us.”

Lieutenant Maynard stood looking out forward at the pirate vessel, which they were now steadily nearing under half sail. He could see that there were signs of bustle aboard and of men running around upon the deck. Then he walked aft and around the cabin. The sloop was some distance astern. It appeared to have run aground, and they were trying to push it off with the sweeps. The lieutenant looked down into the water over the stern, and saw that the schooner was already raising the mud in her wane. Then he went forward along the deck. His men were crouching down along by the low rail, and there was a tense quietness of expectation about them. The lieutenant looked them over as he passed them. “Johnson,” he said, “do you take the lead and line and go forward and sound a bit.” Then to the others: “Now, my men, the moment we run her aboard, you get aboard of her as quick as you can, do you understand? Don’t wait for the sloop or think about her, but just see that the grappling irons are fast, and then get aboard. If any man offers to resist you, shoot him down. Are you ready, Mr. Cringle?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the gunner.

“Very well, then, be ready, men; we’ll be aboard ‘em in a minute or two.”

“There’s less than a fathom of water here, sir,” sang out Johnson from the bows. As he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the schooner was still. They were aground. “Push her off to the lee there! Let go your sheets!” roared the boatswain from the wheel. “Push her off to the lee.” He spun the wheel around as he spoke. A half a dozen men sprang up, seized the sweeps, and plunged them into the water. Others ran to help them, but the sweeps only sank into the mud without moving the schooner. The sails had fallen off and they were flapping and thumping and clapping in the wind. Others of the crew had scrambled to their feet and ran to help those at the sweeps. The lieutenant had walked quickly aft again. They were very close now to the pirate sloop, and suddenly some one hailed him from aboard of her. When he turned he saw that there was a man standing up on the rail of the pirate sloop, holding by the back stays. “Who are you?” he called, from the distance, “and whence come you? What do you seek here? What d’ye mean, coming down on us this way?”

The lieutenant heard somebody say, “That’s Blackbeard hisself.” And he looked with great interest at the distant figure.

The pirate stood out boldly against the cloudy sky. Somebody seemed to speak to him from behind. He turned his head and then he turned round again. “We’re only peaceful merchantmen!” he called out. “What authority have you got to come down upon us this way? If you’ll come aboard I’ll show you my papers and that we’re only peaceful merchantmen.”

“The villains!” said the lieutenant to the master, who stood beside him. “They’re peaceful merchantmen, are they! They look like peaceful merchantmen, with four carronades and a long gun aboard!” Then he called out across the water, “I’ll come aboard with my schooner as soon as I can push her off here.”

“If you undertake to come aboard of me,” called the pirate, “I’ll shoot into you. You’ve got no authority to board me, and I won’t have you do it. If you undertake it ‘twill be at your own risk, for I’ll neither ask quarter of you nor give none.”

“Very well,” said the lieutenant, “if you choose to try that, you may do as you please; for I’m coming aboard of you as sure as heaven.”

“Push off the bow there!” called the boatswain at the wheel. “Look alive! Why don’t you push off the bow?”

“She’s hard aground!” answered the gunner. “We can’t budge her an inch.”

“If they was to fire into us now,” said the sailing master, “they’d smash us to pieces.”

“They won’t fire into us,” said the lieutenant. “They won’t dare to.” He jumped down from the cabin deckhouse as he spoke, and went forward to urge the men in pushing off the boat. It was already beginning to move.

At that moment the sailing master suddenly called out, “Mr. Maynard! Mr. Maynard! they’re going to give us a broadside!”

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, before Lieutenant Maynard could turn, there came a loud and deafening crash, and then instantly another, and a third, and almost as instantly a crackling and rending of broken wood. There were clean yellow splinters flying everywhere. A man fell violently against the lieutenant, nearly overturning him, but he caught at the stays and so saved himself. For one tense moment he stood holding his breath. Then all about him arose a sudden outcry of groans and shouts and oaths. The man who had fallen against him was lying face down upon the deck. His thighs were quivering, and a pool of blood was spreading and running out from under him. There were other men down, all about the deck. Some were rising; some were trying to rise; some only moved.

There was a distant sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. It was from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks. They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they were going to shoot again.

The low rail afforded almost no shelter against such a broadside, and there was nothing for it but to order all hands below for the time being.

“Get below!” roared out the lieutenant. “All hands get below and lie snug for further orders!” In obedience the men ran scrambling below into the hold, and in a little while the decks were nearly clear except for the three dead men and some three or four wounded. The boatswain, crouching down close to the wheel, and the lieutenant himself were the only others upon deck. Everywhere there were smears and sprinkles of blood. “Where’s Brookes?” the lieutenant called out.

“He’s hurt in the arm, sir, and he’s gone below,” said the boatswain.

Thereupon the lieutenant himself walked over to the forecastle hatch, and, hailing the gunner, ordered him to get up another ladder, so that the men could be run up on deck if the pirates should undertake to come aboard. At that moment the boatswain at the wheel called out that the villains were going to shoot again, and the lieutenant, turning, saw the gunner aboard of the pirate sloop in the act of touching the iron to the touchhole. He stooped down. There was another loud and deafening crash of cannon, one, two, three—four—the last two almost together—and almost instantly the boatswain called out, “‘Tis the sloop, sir! look at the sloop!”

The sloop had got afloat again, and had been coming up to the aid of the schooner, when the pirates fired their second broadside now at her. When the lieutenant looked at her she was quivering with the impact of the shot, and the next moment she began falling off to the wind, and he could see the wounded men rising and falling and struggling upon her decks.

At the same moment the boatswain called out that the enemy was coming aboard, and even as he spoke the pirate sloop came drifting out from the cloud of smoke that enveloped her, looming up larger and larger as she came down upon them. The lieutenant still crouched down under the rail, looking out at them. Suddenly, a little distance away, she came about, broadside on, and then drifted. She was close aboard now. Something came flying through the air—another and another. They were bottles. One of them broke with a crash upon the deck. The others rolled over to the farther rail. In each of them a quick-match was smoking. Almost instantly there was a flash and a terrific report, and