The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis by Joseph A. Altsheler (ebook smartphone .txt) 📖

class='pagenum'>[Pg 102] on, to sail faster and faster, he begged her gunners to aim aright despite the darkness, to rake the decks of the schooner with grape and to send the heavy round shot into her vitals.

The sloop kept up a continuous fire with her bow guns. The heavy reports crashed through the darkness, the sounds rolling sullenly away, and not every shot went wild. There was a tearing of sails, a splintering of spars, a shattering of wood, and now and then the fall of a man. Under the insistent and continuous urgence of the captain the men on the schooner replied with the Long Tom in her stern, and, when one of the shots swept the deck of the sloop, the fierce, dark sailors shouted in joy. Robert saw with a sinking of the heart that the gap between the two vessels was still widening, while almost the last star was gone from the heavens, and it was now so dark that everything was hidden a few hundred yards away.

"We'll lose her! We'll lose her yet!" cried the captain. "Winds and the night fight for us. See you, Peter, we must be the chosen children of fortune, for this can hardly be chance!"

Robert said nothing, because it seemed for the time at least that the captain's words were true. A sudden and tremendous gust of wind caught the schooner and drove her on, ragged and smashed though she was, at increased speed, while the same narrow belt of wind seemed to miss the sloop. The result was apparent at once. The gap between them became a gulf. The flag flying so proudly on the topmast of the sloop was gone in the dusk. Her spars and sails faded away, she showed only a dim, low hulk on the water from which her guns flashed.[Pg 103]

The schooner tacked again. A new bank of blackness poured down over the sea, and the sloop was gone.

"It was a trap and we sailed straight into it," exclaimed the captain, "but it couldn't hold us. We've escaped!"

He spoke the truth. They drove steadily on a long time, and saw no more of the sloop of war.[Pg 104]

CHAPTER VI THE ISLAND

Robert came out of his benumbed state. It had all seemed a fantastic dream, but he had only to look around him to know that it was reality. Three or four battle lanterns were shining and they threw a ghostly light over the deck of the schooner, which was littered with spars and sails, and the bodies of men who had fallen before the fire of the sloop. Streams of blood flowed everywhere. He sickened and shuddered again and again.

The captain, a savage figure, stained with blood, showed ruthless energy. Driving the men who remained unwounded, he compelled them to cut away the wreckage and to throw the dead overboard. Garrulous, possessed by some demon, he boasted to them of many prizes they would yet take, and he pointed to the black flag which still floated overhead, unharmed through all the battle. He boasted of it as a good omen and succeeded in infusing into them some of his own spirit.

Robert was still unnoticed and at first he wandered about his strait territory. Then he lent a helping hand with the wreckage. His own life was at stake as well as theirs, and whether they wished it or not he could not continue to stand by an idler. Circumstance and the sea forced him into comradeship with men of evil, and as long as it lasted he must make the best of it. So he fell[Pg 105] to with such a will that it drew the attention of the captain.

"Good boy, Peter!" he cried. "You'll be one of us yet in spite of yourself! Our good fortune is yours, too! You as well as we have escaped a merry hanging! I'll warrant you that the feel of the rope around the neck is not pleasant, and it's well to keep one's head out of the noose, eh, Peter?"

Robert did not answer, but tugged at a rope that two other men were trying to reeve. He knew now that while they had escaped the sloop of war their danger was yet great and imminent. The wind was still rising, and now it was a howling gale. The schooner had been raked heavily. Most of her rigging was gone, huge holes had been smashed in her hull, half of her crew had been killed and half of the rest were wounded, there were not enough men to work her even were she whole and the weather the best. As the crest of every wave passed she wallowed in the trough of the sea, and shipped water steadily. The exultant look passed from the captain's eyes.

"I'm afraid you're a lad of ill omen, Peter," he said to Robert. "I had you on board another ship once and she went to pieces. It looks now as if my good schooner were headed the same way."

A dark sailor standing near heard him, and nodded in approval, but Robert said:

"Blame the sloop of war, not me. You would lay her aboard, and see what has happened!"

The captain frowned and turned away. For a long time he paid no further attention to Robert, all his skill and energy concentrated upon the effort to save his ship. But it became evident even to Robert's inexperienced eye that the schooner was stricken mortally. The guns[Pg 106] of the sloop had not raked and slashed her in vain. A pirate she had been, but a pirate she would be no more. She rolled more heavily all the time, and Robert noticed that she was deeper in the water. Beyond a doubt she was leaking fast.

The captain conferred with the second mate, a tall, thin man whom he called Stubbs. Then the two, standing together near the mast, watched the ship for a while and Robert, a little distance away, watched them. He was now keenly alive to his own fate. Young and vital, he did not want to die. He had never known a time when he was more anxious to live. He was not going to be sold into slavery on a West India plantation. Fortune had saved him from that fate, and it might save him from new perils. In a storm on a sinking vessel he was nevertheless instinct with hope. Somewhere beyond the clouds Tayoga's Tododaho on his great star was watching him. The captain spoke to him presently.

"Peter," he said, "I think it will be necessary for us to leave the ship soon. That cursed sloop has done for the staunchest schooner that ever sailed these seas. I left you on board a sinking vessel the other time, but as it seemed to bring you good luck then, I won't do it now. Besides, I'm tempted to keep you with me. You bore yourself bravely during the battle. I will say that for you."

"Thanks for taking me, and for the compliment, too," said Robert. "I've no mind to be left here alone in the middle of the ocean on a sinking ship."

"'Tis no pleasant prospect, nor have we an easy path before us in the boats, either. On the whole, the chances are against us. There's land not far away to starboard, but whether we'll make it in so rough a sea is another matter. Are you handy with an oar?"[Pg 107]

"Fairly so. I've had experience on lakes and rivers, but none on the sea."

"'Twill serve. We'll launch three boats. Hooker, the boatswain, takes one, Stubbs has the other, and I command the last. You go with me."

"It would have been my choice."

"I'm flattered, Peter. I may get a chance yet to sell you to one of the plantations."

"I think not, Captain. The stars in their courses have said 'no.'"

"Come! Come! Don't be Biblical here."

"The truth is the truth anywhere. But I'm glad enough to go with you."

One of the boats was launched with great difficulty, and the boatswain, Hooker, and six men, two of whom were wounded, were lowered into it. It capsized almost immediately, and all on board were lost. Those destined for the other two boats hung back a while, but it became increasingly necessary for them to make the trial, no matter what the risk. The schooner rolled and pitched terribly, and a sailor, sent to see, reported that the water was rising in her steadily.

The captain showed himself a true seaman and leader. He had been wounded in the shoulder, but the hurt had been bound up hastily and he saw to everything. Each of the boats contained kegs of water, arms, ammunition and food. A second was launched and Stubbs and his crew were lowered into it. A great wave caught it and carried it upon its crest, and Robert, watching, expected to see it turn over like the first, but the mate and the crew managed to restore the balance, and they disappeared in the darkness, still afloat.

"There, lads," exclaimed the captain, "you see it can be done. Now we'll go too, and the day will soon come[Pg 108] when we'll have a new ship, and then, ho! once more for the rover's free and gorgeous life!"

The unwounded men raised a faint cheer. The long boat was launched with infinite care, and Robert lent a hand. The pressure of circumstances made his feeling of comradeship with these men return. For the time at least his life was bound up with theirs. Two wounded sailors were lowered first into the boat.

"Now, Peter, you go," said the captain. "As I told you, I may have a chance yet to sell you to a plantation, and I must preserve my property."

Robert slid down the rope. The captain and the others followed, and they cast loose. They were eight in the boat, three of whom were wounded, though not badly. The lad looked back at the schooner. He saw a dim hulk, with the black flag still floating over it, and then she passed from sight in the darkness and driving storm.

He took up an oar, resolved to do his best in the common struggle for life, and with the others fought the sea for a long time. The captain set their course south by west, apparently for some island of which he knew, and meanwhile the men strove not so much to make distance as to keep the boat right side up. Often Robert thought they were gone. They rode dizzily upon high waves, and they sloped at appalling angles, but always they righted and kept afloat. The water sprayed them continuously and the wind made it sting like small shot, but that was a trifle to men in their situation who were straining merely to keep the breath in their bodies.

After a while—Robert had no idea how long the time had been—the violence of the wind seemed to abate somewhat, and their immense peril of sinking decreased. Robert sought an easier position at the oar, and tried to see something reassuring, but it was still almost as dark as[Pg 109] pitch, and there was only the black and terrible sea around them. But the captain seemed cheerful.

"We'll make it, lads, before morning," he said. "The storm is sinking, as you can see, and the island is there waiting for us."

In another hour the sea became so much calmer that there was no longer any danger of the boat overturning. Half of the men who had been rowing rested an hour, and then the other half took their turn. Robert was in the second relay, and when he put down his oar he realized for the first time that his hands were sore and his bones aching.

"You've done well, Peter," said the captain. "You've become one of us, whether or no, and we'll make you an honored inhabitant of our island when we come to it."

Robert said nothing, but lay back, drawing long breaths of relief. The danger of death by drowning had passed for the moment and he had a sense of triumph over nature. Despite his weariness and soreness, he was as anxious as ever to live, and he began to wonder about this island of which the captain spoke. It must be tropical, and hence in his imagination beautiful, but by whom was it peopled? He did not doubt that they would reach it, and that he, as usual, would escape all perils.

Always invincible, his greatest characteristic was flaming up within him. He seemed to have won, in a way, the regard of the captain, and he did not fear the men. They would be castaways together, and on the land opportunities to escape would come. On the whole he preferred the hazards of the land to those of the sea. He knew better how to deal with them. He was more at home in the wilderness than on salt water. Yet a brave heart was alike in