Loe raamatut: «Mrs. Cliff's Yacht», lehekülg 15
CHAPTER XXIX
THE "VITTORIO" FROM GENOA
When Captain Horn on the Monterey perceived that one of the vessels he had sighted was steaming northward with the apparent intention of meeting him, his anxieties greatly increased. He could think of no righteous reason why that vessel should come to meet him. He had made out that this vessel with the two others had been lying to. Why should it not wait for him if it wished to speak with him? The course of this stranger looked like mischief of some sort, and the Captain could think of no other probable mischief than that which had been practised upon the Dunkery Beacon.
The steamer which he now commanded carried a treasure far more valuable than that which lay in the hold of the Dunkery, and if she had been a swifter vessel he would have turned and headed away for safety at the top of her speed. But he did not believe she could outsail the steamer which was now approaching, and safety by flight was not to be considered.
There was another reason which determined him not to change his course. The observers on the Monterey had now decided that the small vessel to the westward of the Dunkery Beacon was very like a yacht, and the Captain thought that if there was to be trouble of any sort, he would like to be as near Shirley and Burke as possible. Why that rapidly approaching steamer should desire to board him as the Dunkery Beacon had been boarded he could not imagine, unless it was supposed that he carried part of the treasure, but he did not waste any time on conjectures. It was not likely that this steamer carried a cannon, and if she intended to attack the Monterey, it must be by boarding her; probably by the same stratagem which had been practised before.
But Captain Horn determined that no man upon any mission whatever should put his foot upon the deck of the Monterey if he could prevent it. Since he had taken on board Captain Hagar and his men, he had an extraordinarily large crew, and on the number of his men he depended for defence, for it was impossible to arm them as well as the attacking party would probably be armed, if there should be an attacking party.
Captain Horn now went to Edna and told her of the approaching danger, and for the second time in his life he gave her a pistol and requested her to use it in any way she thought proper if the need should come. He asked her to stay for the present in the cabin with her maid, promising to come to her again very shortly.
Then he called all the available men together, and addressed them very briefly. It was not necessary to tell the crew of the Dunkery Beacon what dangers might befall them if the pirates should come upon them a second time, and the men he had brought with him from Vera Cruz now knew all about the previous affair, and that it would probably be necessary for them to stand up boldly for their own defence.
The Captain told his men that the only thing to be done was to keep the fellows on that approaching steamer from boarding the Monterey whether they tried to do so by what might look like fair means or by foul means. All the firearms of every kind which could be collected were distributed around among those who it was thought could best use them, while the rest of the men were armed with belaying pins, handspikes, hatchets, axes, or anything with which a blow could be struck, and they were ranged along the bulwarks on each side of the ship from bow to stern.
The other steamer was now near enough for her name, Vittorio, to be read upon her bow. This and her build made the captain quite sure that she was from the Mediterranean, and without doubt one of the pirates of whom he had heard. He could see heads all along her rail, and he thought it possible that she might not care to practise any trick upon him, but might intend a bold and undisguised attack. She had made no signal, she carried no colors or flag of any kind, and he thought it not unlikely that when she should be near enough, she would begin operations by a volley of rifle shots from her deck. To provide against this danger he made most of his men crouch down behind the bulwarks, and ordered all the others to be ready to screen themselves. A demand to lie to, and a sharp fusillade might be enough to insure the immediate submission of an ordinary merchantman, but Captain Horn did not consider the Monterey a vessel of this sort.
He now ran down to Edna, and was met by her at the cabin door. She had had ideas very like his own. "I shouldn't wonder if they would fire upon us," she said, her face very pale; "and I want you to remember that you are most likely the tallest man on board. No matter what happens, you must take care of yourself, – you must never forget that!"
"I will take care of you," he said, with his arms about her, "and I will not forget myself. And now keep close, and watch sharply. I don't believe they can ever board us, – we're too many for them!"
The instant the Captain had gone, Edna called Maka and Cheditafa, the two elderly negroes who were the devoted adherents of herself and her husband. "I want you to watch the Captain all the time," she said. "If the people on that ship fire guns, you pull him back if he shows himself. If any one comes near him to harm him, use your hatchets; never let him out of your sight, follow him close, keep all danger from him."
The negroes answered in the African tongue. They were too much excited to use English, but she knew what they meant, and trusted them. To Mok, the other negro, she gave no orders. Even now he could speak but little English, and he was in the party simply because her brother Ralph – whose servant Mok had been – had earnestly desired her to take care of him until he should want him again, for this coal-black and agile native of Africa was not a creature who could be left to take care of himself.
The Vittorio, which was now not more than a quarter of a mile away, and which had slightly changed her course, so that she was apparently intending to pass the Monterey, and continue northward contented with an observation of the larger vessel, was a very dangerous pirate ship, far more so than the one which had captured the Dunkery Beacon. She was not more dangerous because she was larger or swifter, or carried a more numerous or better-armed crew, but for the reason that she had on board a certain Mr. Banker who had once belonged to a famous band of desperadoes, called the "Rackbirds," well-known along the Pacific coast of South America. He had escaped destruction when the rest of his band were drowned in a raging torrent, and he had made himself extremely obnoxious and even dangerous to Mrs. Horn and to Captain Horn when they were in Paris at a very critical time of their fortunes.
This ex-Rackbird Banker had had but a very cloudy understanding of the state of affairs when he was endeavoring to blackmail Mrs. Horn, and making stupid charges against her husband. He knew that the three negroes he had met in Paris in the service of Mrs. Horn had once been his own slaves, held not by any right of law, but by brutal force, and he knew that the people with whom they were then travelling must have been in some way connected with his old comrades, the Rackbirds. He had made bold attempts to turn this scanty knowledge to his own benefit, but had mournfully failed.
In the course of time, however, he had come to know everything. The news of Captain Horn's great discovery of treasure on the coast of Peru had gone forth to the public, and Banker's soul had writhed in disappointed rage as he thought that he and his fellows had lived and rioted like fools for months, and months, and months, but a short distance from all these vast hoards of gold. This knowledge almost maddened him as he brooded over it by night and by day. When he had been set free from the French prison to which his knavery had consigned him, Banker gave himself up body and soul to the consideration of the treasure which Captain Horn had brought to France from Peru. He considered it from every possible point of view, and when at last he heard of the final disposition which it had been determined to make of the gold, he considered it from the point of his own cupidity and innate rascality.
He it was who devised the plan of sending out a swift steamer to overhaul the merchantman which was to carry the gold to Peru, and who, after consultation with the many miscreants whom he was obliged to take into his confidence and to depend upon for assistance, decided that it would be well to fit out two ships, so that if one should fail in her errand, the other might succeed. The steamers from Genoa and Toulon were fitted out and manned under the direction of Banker, but with the one which sailed from Marseilles he had nothing to do. This expedition was organized by men who had quarrelled with him and his associates, and it was through the dissension of the opposing parties in this intended piracy that the detectives came to know of it.
Banker had sailed from Genoa, but the Toulon vessel had got ahead of him. It had sighted the Dunkery Beacon before she reached Kingston; it had cruised in the Caribbean Sea until she came sailing down towards Tobago Island; it had followed her out into the Atlantic, and when the proper time came it had taken her – hull, engine, gold, and everything which belonged to her, except her captain and her crew, and had steamed away with her.
Banker did not command the Vittorio, for he was not a seaman, but he commanded her captain, and through him everybody on board. He directed her course and her policy. He was her leading spirit and her blackest devil.
It had been no part of Banker's intentions to cruise about the South Atlantic and search for a steamer with black and white stripes running up and down her funnel. His plan of action was to be the same as that of the other pirate, and the Vittorio therefore steamed for Kingston as soon as she could manage to clear from Genoa. His calculations were very good ones, but there was a flaw in them, for he did not know that the Dunkery Beacon sailed three days before her regular time. Consequently, the Vittorio was the last of the four steamers which reached Jamaica on business connected with the Incas' treasure.
The Vittorio did not go into Kingston Harbor, but Banker got himself put on shore and visited the town. There he not only discovered that the Dunkery Beacon had sailed, that an American yacht had sailed after her, but that a steamer from Vera Cruz, commanded by Captain Horn, now well known as the discoverer of the wonderful treasure, had touched here, expecting to find the Dunkery Beacon in port, and had then, scarcely twelve hours before, cleared for Jamaica.
The American yacht was a mystery to Banker. It might be a pirate from the United States for all he knew, but he was very certain that Captain Horn had not left Kingston for any reason except to accompany and protect the Dunkery Beacon. If a steamer commanded by this man, whom Banker now hated more than he hated anybody else in the world, should fall in and keep company with the steamer which was conveying the treasure to Peru, it might be a very hard piece of work for him or his partner in command of the vessel from Toulon to get possession of that treasure, no matter what means they might employ, but all Banker could do was to swear at his arch-enemy and his bad luck, and to get away south with all speed possible. If he could do nothing, he might hear of something. He would never give up until he was positive there was no chance for him.
So he took the course that the Dunkery Beacon must have taken, and sailed down the coast under full head of steam. When at last he discovered the flag of his private consort hoisted over the steamer which carried the golden prize, and had gone on board the Dunkery Beacon and had heard everything, his Satanic delight blazed high and wild. He cared nothing for the yacht which hung upon the heels of the captured steamer, – it would not be difficult to dispose of that vessel, – but his turbulent ecstasies were a little dampened by the discovery of a large steamer bearing down from the north. This he instantly suspected to be the Monterey, which must have taken a more westerly course than that which he had followed, and which he had therefore passed without sighting.
The ex-Rackbird did not hesitate a moment as to what ought to be done. That everlastingly condemned meddler, Horn, must never be allowed to put his oar into this business. If he were not content with the gold which he had for himself, he should curse the day that he had tried to keep other people from getting the gold that they wanted for themselves. No matter what had to be done, he must never reach the Dunkery Beacon– he must never know what had happened to her. Here was a piece of work for the Vittorio to attend to without the loss of a minute.
When Banker gave orders to head for the approaching steamer he immediately began to make ready for an attack upon her, and, as this was to be a battle between merchant ships, neither of them provided with any of the ordinary engines of naval warfare, his plan was of a straightforward, old-fashioned kind. He would run his ship alongside the other; he would make fast, and then his men, each one with a cutlass and a pistol, should swarm over the side of the larger vessel and cut down and fire until the beastly hounds were all dead or on their knees. If he caught sight of Captain Horn, – and he was sure he would recognize him, for such a fellow would be sure to push himself forward no matter what was going on, – he would take his business into his own hands. He would give no signal, no warning. If they wanted to know what he came for, they would soon find out.
Before he left Genoa he had thought that it was possible that he might make this sort of an attack upon the Dunkery Beacon, and he had therefore provided for it. He had shipped a number of grappling-irons with long chains attached which were run through ring-bolts on his deck. With these and other appliances for making fast to a vessel alongside, Banker was sure he could stick to an enemy or a prize as long as he wanted to lie by her.
Everything was now made ready for the proposed attack, and all along the starboard side of the Vittorio mattresses were hung in order to break the force of the shock when the two vessels should come together. Every man who could be spared was ordered on deck, and fully armed. The men who were to make fast to the other steamer were posted in their proper places, and the rest of his miscreants were given the very simple orders to get on board the Monterey the best way they could and as soon as they could, and to cut down or shoot every man they met without asking questions or saying a word. Whether or not it would be necessary to dispose of all the crew which Captain Horn might have on board, Banker had not determined. But of one thing he was certain: he would leave no one on board of her to work her to the nearest port and give news of what had happened. One mistake of that kind was enough to make, and his stupid partner, who had commanded the vessel from Toulon, had made it.
CHAPTER XXX
THE BATTLE OF THE MERCHANT SHIPS
When the Vittorio showed that in veering away from the Monterey she had done so only in order to make a sweep around to the west, and when she had headed south and the mattresses lowered along her starboard side showed plainly to Captain Horn that she was about to attack him and how she was going to do it, his first thought was to embarrass her by reversing his course and steering this way and that, but he instantly dismissed this idea. The pirate vessel was smaller and faster than his own, and probably much more easily managed, and apart from the danger of a collision fatal to his ship, he would only protract the conflict by trying to elude her. He was so sure that he had men enough to beat down the scoundrels when they tried to board that he thought the quicker the fight began, the better. If only he had Shirley and Burke with him, he thought; but although they were not here, he had Edna to fight for, and that made three men of himself.
With most of his men crouching behind his port bulwarks, and others protected by deck houses, smokestack, and any other available devices against gunshots, Captain Horn awaited the coming of the pirate steamer, which was steaming towards him as if it intended to run him down. As she came near, the Vittorio slowed up, and the Monterey veered to starboard; but, notwithstanding this precaution and the fact that they sailed side by side for nearly a minute without touching, the two vessels came together with such force that the Monterey, high out of water, rolled over as if a great wave had struck her. As she rolled back, grappling-irons were thrown over her rail, and cables and lines were made fast to every available place which could be reached by eager hands and active arms. Some of the grappling-irons were immediately thrown off by the crew of the Monterey, but the chains of others had been so tightened as the vessel rolled back to an even keel that it was impossible to move them.
The Monterey's rail was considerably higher than that of the Vittorio, and as none of the crew of the former vessel had shown themselves, no shots had yet been fired, but with the activity of apes the pirates tried to scramble over the side of the larger vessel. Now followed a furious hand-to-hand combat. Blows rained down on the heads and shoulders of the assailants, some of whom dropped back to the deck of their ship, while others drew their pistols and fired right and left at the heads and arms they saw over the rail of the Monterey.
The pirate leaders were amazed at the resistance they met with. They had not imagined that Captain Horn had so large a crew, or that it was a crew which would fight. But these pirates had their blood up, and not one of them had any thought of giving up their enterprise on account of this unexpected resistance. Dozens of them at a time sprang upon the rail of their own vessel, and, with cutlass or pistol in one hand, endeavored to scramble up the side of the Monterey; but although the few who succeeded in crossing her bulwarks soon fell beneath the blows and shots of her crew, the attack was vigorously kept up, especially by pistol shots.
Whenever there was a chance, a pirate hand would be raised above the rail of the Monterey and a revolver discharged upon her rail, and every few minutes there would be a rush to one point or another and a desperate fight upon the rail. The engines of both vessels had been stopped, and the screaming and roaring of the escaping steam gave additional horror to this fearful battle. Not a word could be heard from any one, no matter how loudly it might be shouted.
Whatever firearms were possessed by the men on the Monterey were used with good effect, but in this respect they were vastly inferior to the enemy. When they had fired their pistols and their guns, some of them had no more ammunition, and others had no opportunity to reload. The men of the Vittorio had firearms in abundance and pockets full of cartridges. Consequently it was not long before Captain Horn's men were obliged to rely upon their hatchets, their handspikes, their belaying-pins, and their numbers.
Banker was in a very furious state of mind. He had expected to board the Monterey without opposition, and now he had been fighting long and hard, and not a man of his crew was on board the other vessel. He had soon discovered that there were a great many men on board the Monterey, but he believed that the real reason for the so far successful resistance was the fact that Captain Horn commanded them.
Several times he mounted the upper deck of the Vittorio, and with a rifle in hand endeavored to get a chance to aim at the tall figure of which he now and then caught sight, and who he saw was directing everything that was going on. But every time he stood out with his rifle a pistol ball whizzed by him, and made him jump back. Whoever fired at him was not a good shot, but Banker did not wish to expose himself to any kind of a shot. Once he got a chance of taking aim at the Captain from behind the smokestack, but at that moment the Captain stepped back hurriedly out of view, as if somebody had been pulling him by the coat, and a ball rang against the funnel high above his own head. It was plain he was watched, and would not expose himself.
But that devil Horn must be killed, and he swore between his grinding teeth that he himself would do it. His men, many of them with bloody heads, were still fighting, swearing, climbing, and firing. None of them had been killed except those who had gained the deck of the other vessel, but Banker did not believe that they would be able to board the Monterey until its captain had been disposed of. If he could put a ball into that fellow, the fight would be over.
Banker now determined to lead a fresh attack instead of simply ordering one. If he could call to his men from the deck of the Monterey, they would follow him. The Vittorio lay so that her bow was somewhat forward of that of the Monterey, and as the rails at the bows of the two vessels were some distance apart, there was no fighting forward. The long boom of the fore-mast of the Vittorio stretched over her upper deck, and, crouching low, Banker cut all the lines which secured it. Then with a quick run he seized the long spar near its outer end, and thus swinging it out until it struck the shrouds, he found himself dangling over the forward deck of the Monterey, upon which he quickly dropped.
It so happened that the fight was now raging aft, and for a moment Banker stood alone looking about him. He believed his rapid transit through the air had not been noticed. He would not call upon his men to follow as he had intended. Without much fear of detection he would slip quietly behind the crew of the Monterey, and take a shot at Captain Horn the moment he laid eyes on him. Then he could shout out to his men to some purpose.
Banker moved on a few steps, not too cautiously, for he did not wish to provoke suspicion, when suddenly a hand was placed upon his chest. There was nobody in front of him, but there was the hand, and a very big one it was, and very black. Like a flash Banker turned, and beheld himself face to face with the man Mok, the same chimpanzee-like negro who had been his slave, and with whom in the streets of Paris he had once had a terrible struggle, which had resulted in his capture by the police and his imprisonment. Here was that same black devil again, his arms about him as if they had been chain-cables on a windlass.
Banker had two pistols, but he had put them in his pockets when he made his swing upon the boom, and he had not yet drawn them, and now his arms were held so tightly to his sides that he could not get at his weapons. There was no one near. Banker was wise enough not to call out or even to swear an oath, and Mok had apparently relapsed into the condition of the speechless savage beast. With a wrench which might have torn an ordinary limb from its socket, Banker freed his left arm, but a black hand had grasped it before he could reach his pistol.
Then there was a struggle – quick, hard, silent, and furious, as if two great cobras were writhing together, seeking each other's death. Mok was not armed. Banker could not use knife or pistol. They stumbled, they went down on their knees, they rose and fell together against the rail. Instantly Banker, with his left arm and the strength of his whole body, raised the negro to the rail and pushed him outward. The action was so sudden, the effort of the maddened pirate was so great, that Mok could not resist it – he went over the side. But his hold upon Banker did not relax even in the moment when he felt himself falling, and his weight was so great and the impetus was so tremendous that Banker could not hold back, and followed him over the rail. Still clutching each other tightly, the two disappeared with a splash into the sea.
Fears were beginning to steal into the valiant heart of Captain Horn. The pirates were so well armed, they kept up such a savage fire upon his decks, that although their shots were sent at random, several men had been killed, and others – he knew not how many – wounded, that he feared his crew, ordinary sailors and not accustomed to such savage work as this, might consider the contest too unequal, and so lose heart. If that should be the case, the affair would be finished.
But there was still one means of defence on which he thought he might rely to drive off the scoundrels. The Monterey had been a cotton ship, and she was provided with hose by which steam could be thrown upon her cargo in case of fire, and Captain Hagar had undertaken to try to get this into condition to use upon the scoundrels who were endeavoring to board the vessel. By this time two heavy lines of hose had been rigged and attached to the boiler, and the other ends brought out on deck – one forward and the other amidships.
Captain Hagar was a quiet man, and in no way a fighter, but now he seemed imbued with a reckless courage; and without thinking of the danger of exposing himself to pistol or to rifle, he laid the nozzle of his hose over the rail and directed it down upon the deck below. As soon as the hot steam began to pour upon the astonished pirates there were yells and execrations, and when another scalding jet came in upon them over the forward bulwarks of the Monterey, the confusion became greater on the pirate ship.
It was at this moment, as Edna, her face pale and her bright eyes fixed upon the upper deck of the Vittorio, stood with a revolver in her hand at the window of her cabin, which was on deck, that her Swedish maid, trembling so much that she could scarcely stand, approached her and gave her notice that she must quit her service. Edna did not hear what she said. "Are you there?" she cried. "Look out – tell me if you can see Captain Horn!"
The frightened girl, scarcely knowing what she did, rushed from the cabin to look for Captain Horn, not so much because her mistress wanted information of him as because she thought to throw herself upon his protection. She believed that the Captain could do anything for anybody, and she ran madly along the deck on the other side from that on which the battle was raging, and meeting no one, did not stop until she had nearly reached the bow. Then she stopped, looked about her, and in a moment was startled by hearing herself called by her name. There was no one near her; she looked up, she looked around.
Then again she heard her name, "Sophee! Sophee!" Now it seemed to come from the water, and looking over the low rail she beheld a black head on the surface of the sea. Its owner was swimming about, endeavoring to find something on which he could lay hold, and he had seen the white cap of the maid above the ship's side. Sophia and Mok were very good friends, for the latter had always been glad to wait upon her in every way possible, and now she forgot her own danger in her solicitude for the poor black man.
"Oh, Mok! Mok!" she cried, "can't you get out of the water? Can I help you?"
Mok shouted out one of his few English words. "Rope! rope!" he said. But Sophia could see no rope except those which were fast to something, and in her terror she ran aft to call for assistance.
There was now not so much noise and din. The steam was not escaping from the boilers of the Monterey, for it was needed for the hose, and there were no more shots fired from the Vittorio. The officers of the pirate ship were running here and there looking for Banker, that they might ask for orders, while the men were crowding together behind every possible protection, and rushing below to escape the terrible streams of scalding steam.
Now that they could work in safety, the Monterey's men got their handspikes under the grappling-irons, and wrenched them from their holes, and leaning over the side they cut the ropes which held them to the pirate ship. The two vessels now swung apart, and Captain Horn was on the point of giving orders to start the engines and steam ahead, when the maid, Sophia, seized him by the arm. "Mrs. Horn wants you," she said, "and Mok's in the water!"
"Mok!" exclaimed the Captain.
"Yes, here! here!" cried Sophia, and running to the side, she pointed to where Mok's black head and waving arms were still circling about on the surface of the sea.
When a rope had been cast to Mok, and he had been hauled up the side, the Captain gave orders to start ahead, and rushed to the cabin where he had left Edna; but it was not during that brief interval of thankfulness that he heard how she had recognized the Rackbird, Banker, on the pirate ship, and how she had fired at him every time he had shown himself.
The Monterey started southward towards the point where they had last seen the yacht and the Dunkery Beacon, and the pirate ship, veering off to the south-east, steamed slowly away. The people on board of her were looking everywhere for Banker, for without him they knew not what they ought to do, but if their leader ever came up from the great depth to which he had sunk with Mok's black hands upon his throat, his comrades were not near the spot where, dead or alive, he floated to the surface.
