_IV--The Galleys._
When the frigate failed to answer his salute, M. de la Pailletinejumped to a fresh conclusion.
"_Mordieu!_" he cried, "here is another English captain who,like our friend Salt, is weary of carrying his Sovereign's colours.He doesn't mean to strike a blow. A minute and we shall see his flaghauled down."
But the minute passed, and another, and yet a third, and the Englishflag still flew.
By this time they were within musket-shot. One by one the four gunshad spoken from the galley's prow and still there was no answer.On the brink of the tragedy there was silence for an instant.Then a few of the French musketeers seemed to find this intolerableand fired without receiving the order. Followed a silence again, andstill the _Merry Maid_ came on as if to impale herself on thegalley's beak.
And then, suddenly, when in five minutes the vessels must havecollided, round flew the frigate's wheel. For a minute and a halfshe fetched up as if awaking to the consequences of her folly;shuddered and shook against the wind; and, as her sails filled again,fetched away on the westerly tack for her life.
For a full two minutes the French were taken aback.
"Fools, fools!" shouted M. de la Pailletine, beside himself with joy.
The order flew for the slaves on the larboard benches to hold waterfor a minute and the galley's head came round. Nothing gives morespirit than a flying enemy. From mouth to mouth ran the whisper thatthe English were showing their heels; and in a moment these poordevils, who owed all their misery to France, were pulling likemadmen. Jeers rose from the deck.
"If Monsieur the Englishman does not strike within two minutes, downhe goes to the bottom."
"The idiot, to expose his stern!"
"On the whole, it is just as well that _La Merveille_ is so farbehind. We shall have all the glory to ourselves--eh, my children?"
On board the frigate Captain Barker said four words only:
"Take the wheel, Jemmy."
Captain Runacles stepped to it and the steersman gave place.
In truth the hunchback, though this was his first acquaintance with agalley, knew well enough that she would strike for the frigate'sstern as the weakest point. This was precisely what he wished her todo.
Captain Runacles stood with his hand on the wheel and waited,glancing back over his shoulder.
Captain Barker stood by the taffrail with one eye upon the galley andhis face turned in profile to his friend. His right hand was lifted.
The Commodore had made all his dispositions. The galley was toplunge her beak straight into the _Merry Maid's_ stern, and its crew,after one discharge of cannon to clear the frigate's poop, were toboard at once. The men stood ready with their hatchets and cutlassesand set up a wild yell as they drove straight for her. From belowthe slaves echoed it with a melancholy wail.
On they tore. As they yelled again, _L'Heureuse's_ beak was butthirty yards from her prey. A few more leaps and it would strike.
"One--two--"
The little man looked back in their faces and smiled.
"Three--four--five--"
He dropped his hand. Quick as lightning Captain Jerry spun the wheelround. The stern swung sharply off, her sea-way gauged to a nicety.
The next moment the galley flew past. Her beak, missing the stern,rushed on, tearing great splinters out of the _Merry Maid's_ flank.Her starboard oars snapped like matchwood, hurling the slavesbackwards on their benches and killing a dozen on the spot. Then shebrought up, helplessly disabled, right under the frigate's side.
And then at length the English cheer rang forth. In an instant thegrappling-irons were out and the frigate held her foe, clasped,strained close against her ribs, close under her depressed guns.
And at length, too, with a blinding flash and a roar, those Englishguns spoke. A minute had done it all. Sixty seconds before thegallant vessel had lain apparently at the Frenchman's mercy. Now theFrenchman was fastened inextricably, while the crowd upon deck stoodas much exposed as if the galley were a raft.
Down swept the grape-shot, tearing ghastly passages through them.They were near enough to be scorched by the flame of it. Down andacross it rent them, as they crouched and fought with each other toget away and hide. There was no hiding. Before the breath of itthey went down in rows, strewing the deck horribly, mangled, riddled,blown in miserable pieces.
In a trice, too, the English masts and rigging were swarming withmusketeers and sailors who poured hand-grenades among them like hail,scattering wounds and death. The Frenchmen no longer thought ofattacking. Such was the panic among officers as well as common menthat they were incapable even of resistance. Scores who were neitherkilled nor wounded lay flat on their faces, counterfeiting death andhoping to find safety.
This carnage lasted, perhaps, for less than five minutes._L'Heureuse's_ consort was still near upon a league behind, and theother four galleys were still busily chasing the merchantmen.
Captain Barker looked and was well content. But he had much workstill before him, and to do it properly he must husband hisammunition.
He gave the order to board. Forty or fifty men dropped over the_Merry Maid's_ side, cutlass in mouth, and rushed along the galley'sdeck, hewing down all who ventured to oppose them and sparing onlythe slaves, who made no resistance. At last, and merely by theweight of numbers, they were driven back. But this did the Frenchmenno good. Instantly the frigate opened fire again and murdered themby scores.
It was in this extremity that M. de la Pailletine cast his eyesaround and found himself forced to do what Captain Barker from thefirst had meant him to do. The four galleys that had started afterthe convoy were by this time sweeping along on the full tide ofsuccess. In another five minutes the pathway to the Thames would beblocked and all the merchant vessels at their mercy.
M. de la Pailletine hoisted the flag of distress. He called them tohis help.
A wild hurrah broke out from the crew of the frigate. The ordermeant their destruction: for how could the _Merry Maid_ contendagainst six galleys? Yet they cheered, for they had guessed whattheir captain had in his mind. And the little man's greenish eyessparkled as he heard.
"Good boys!" he said briefly, turning to his friend. "The convoy issaved, my lad: and O! but Jemmy, you did it prettily!"