Across the Spanish Main - Harry Collingwood (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗

unexplained and inexplicable escape from the pirates. He then recommended Roger to the care of one of his officers, and, directing Jake and Bevan to take up their quarters and duties with the other seamen until such time as they could be transferred to their own craft, turned away to give orders and attend to the sailing of his ship.

Even as the cutter had dashed alongside, the vessel, as though impatient to resume the chase, had paid off and had begun to move through the water, her bows having been turned in the direction of the other ships, and the craft herself merely thrown into the wind for a moment to lessen her way while the boat came up to her and the falls were hooked on. Then the helm was put up and the ship was away on her old course once more, cracking on and showing every stitch of canvas to the freshening breeze, in full and eager pursuit of her consorts and the pirate, the latter now being hull-down on the southern horizon with nothing below her topsail-yard showing. The flag-ship was the leading ship of the three pursuing vessels; and she was distant some nine miles from the Elizabeth. El Capitan—or the Tiger as she was now named—was two miles astern of the flag-ship, and some seven miles ahead of the Elizabeth; the latter vessel therefore had some considerable distance to cover before she could overtake her consorts. Night was now beginning to fall, and the masts of the Black Pearl gradually disappeared from the sight of those aboard the Elizabeth; but the flag-ship, being so far in advance, still had the pirate well in view; and now she lighted her three poop-lanterns as a guide to the Tiger, which in turn lighted hers to pilot the way for the Elizabeth. The darkness soon falls in those regions, and in a very few minutes, as it seemed, night enveloped them like a pall. There was no moon, and, the night being cloudy, no stars were visible; the blackness, consequently, was intense.

All that could be seen was the triangle of lights in the flag-ship, very dim in the distance, and those on the Tiger, shining somewhat more brightly because nearer at hand. The captain of the Elizabeth commanded that no lanterns should be lighted on board his ship, and indeed that no lights of any kind should be shown on board at all.

“For,” said he, “we sail somewhat faster than the Tiger and the Good Adventure, and can see their lights, so that we can tell where they are. But it is in my mind to have a little sport with good Mr Cavendish, by letting him find us alongside him at daybreak. We will, therefore, carry on as hard as our spars and gear will suffer us, all through the night; and, not to give the others an inkling of our purpose, will edge away to the westward sufficiently to enable us to pass the Tiger about a mile to starboard of her, and the same with the flag-ship.”

At this time it was about two bells in the first dog-watch, and they could therefore reckon on some ten hours of complete darkness—sufficient, as the captain believed and hoped, to allow them to overtake the other two ships of the squadron. They continued to crack on; and, as the skipper had enjoined the maintenance of strict silence, the ship seemed to those on board to resemble some dim phantom vessel, leaping ghost-like from wave to wave before the strengthening wind. No sound whatever was to be heard on board save the “swish” of the water alongside, the low roar of the bow-wave as she plunged through it and turned it aside from her bows, the weird crying of the wind through her maze of rigging aloft, and the occasional “cheep” of parral or block-sheave to the ’scend of the ship.

At about ten o’clock, much to the captain’s satisfaction, the lights at the stern of the Tiger could be much more distinctly seen; and he judged that she could at that time be only some four miles distant, showing that in the past three hours they had gained some three miles on her, which was good sailing. They were also, at this time, a good mile to the westward of the starboard quarter of the Tiger, and, if anything, edging a trifle more to starboard of her as they went along. The reason for this was that the captain did not wish to pass the Tiger at a less distance than a mile; because, although it certainly was a very dark night, on even the blackest of nights, if the weather be clear, there is always a certain “loom” or faint image of a ship thrown against the sky; and this loom would be visible to sharp eyes unless the Elizabeth kept some distance away from her consort.

Little by little they crept up, overtaking the Tiger; and bit by bit her triangle of lights at the stern was becoming merged into one; then the one light became gradually eclipsed, until at length they could not see it at all, and by one o’clock in the morning they knew that they must be running parallel with the Tiger and at a distance of about a mile and a half on her starboard beam.

It was possible now to make out the light of her battle-lanterns in her interior, shining through her open port-holes, through which the gun muzzles also showed, all in readiness for the attack as soon as the pirate was brought to bay. As they opened her up, and came abreast of her, they could see that she was lit up fore-and-aft, and it became perfectly clear that not only was she cleared for action, but that her captain had given orders to his men to sleep at their quarters, and thus be ready for the fight at a moment’s notice.

Having overtaken the Tiger, the Elizabeth began to draw ahead perceptibly, and the brilliantly lighted interior of her consort was soon eclipsed, while the bright triangle of lights at the stern of the Good Adventure now showed up clearly about two and a half miles distant, broad on the port bow.

Captain Pryce was in great glee, for, if all went well, his little jest would be a brilliant success, and by daybreak his would be the foremost vessel of the squadron, and therefore the first to come up with the Black Pearl.

But where was the pirate? It seemed certain that the flag-ship must have her in view, since she was standing steadily along on her course; but not a sign of the schooner could be made out by the people on board the Elizabeth.

“Surely,” said the captain, who, in his keenness, was spending the night on deck, “we ought by this time to be able to see something of that craft, a binnacle light, or a glimmer of some sort, to show us where she is! We are nearly abreast of the flag-ship, and I cannot see a trace of the Black Pearl; yet Mr Cavendish seems to be standing on with perfect confidence, which he would hardly do were she not within his view. Still, it may be that he has lost her, and is merely trusting that she will hold her course, and has the hope of sighting her at daybreak.”

He had barely finished speaking, when Roger, who had been gazing long and earnestly into the dusky blackness to the south-west, came up beside him and said in a low tone of voice:

“Sir, I have been looking for some time over in that direction, and within the last few minutes it has come to me that there is a black something over there—can you not see it, sir?—that is growing very rapidly bigger!”

“You are very right, Mr Trevose,” replied the captain; “you have done well to tell me. There is, indeed, something away there; I can make out the loom of a vessel’s sails quite plainly. Now, who or what may she be? Ah! I have it. The flag-ship is sailing at haphazard after all. The pirate has doubled and, putting out all lights, has trusted to his luck to run past the squadron in the darkness. What good fortune for us that he doubled to starboard, and that I took it into this noddle of mine to have a jest against the commodore to-night! Had he turned the other way he would certainly have escaped, as there is no ship over there to see him, while here are we, with all lights out, and he will run right into our arms in a few moments. Let her go off a couple of points, Mr Reynolds.”

Orders were now given by passing the word instead of by drum or whistle, and in a few minutes the men were all standing silently at quarters, with battle-lanterns lighted but carefully masked, and everything ready to pour in a deadly broadside as the pirate came abreast of their ship.

As she approached, the poop-lanterns on the stern of the Elizabeth were lighted to serve as a guide to the Tiger’s people, who, for their part, were vastly astonished at their sudden appearance, and a light was also displayed in the port mizzen rigging, to enable the flag-ship to distinguish friend from foe.

Of course all disguise and concealment was now at an end; the pirate had seen them, but—too late! She was now less than a cable’s length distant from the Elizabeth, and as she was bearing up, and before even her men could leap to their quarters, the Elizabeth had luffed and delivered her starboard broadside with murderous effect. Down came the mainmast, severed just above the deck, bringing the fore-topgallant-mast with it; down on her crowded decks crashed the wreckage, adding its own quota of killed and wounded to that effected by the guns of the English vessel.

The flag-ship had already borne up, and now came foaming down to the scene of the combat, with the Tiger lumbering along astern.

The pitchy blackness of the night was illuminated redly and vividly by the flashes of the guns. The Black Pearl, finding escape impossible, had determined to fight to the bitter end. Her guns were run out, and they at once opened a galling and well-directed fire upon the Elizabeth, which replied in kind, and the night air resounded with the report of cannon and small-arms, and was rent with cries, groans, and screams from the wounded, and shouts and oaths from all.

The flag-ship now arrived on the scene, and, taking a wide sweep and luffing up with main-topsail aback under the stern of the Black Pearl, poured in a raking broadside that traversed the whole length of the pirate’s decks, leaving them a very shambles of dead and wounded.

The artillery tight did not last very long. Anxious to capture José Leirya alive, Cavendish—perhaps not too well advisedly—laid his ship alongside the schooner, and poured his men on to the pirate’s decks.

Seeing this, the captain of the Elizabeth, not to be behindhand, did the same. Ordering his men away from the guns, and forming them up, he led them in person over the side on to the decks of the Pearl, which was by this time a scene of dreadful carnage. Blood was everywhere; her planking was so slimy with it that men slipped and fell in it. It ran in little rivulets from the scuppers.

Roger, who followed close upon the heels of the captain, thought involuntarily of William Evans’s description of how José Leirya had captured this very vessel, cutting her out from under San Juan fort in Puerto Rico; and his tale of how freely the blood flowed on these same decks then.

But he had no time for mere thought; his attention was wholly taken up with the fighting, and the problem of how to avoid being impaled or cut down by some furious pirate.

The villains knew that they were