CHAPTER XIV.
Sir Sidney Smith, having pulled back to the Vengeance, found our hero busily engaged routing out all the shot that could be found; but, to their exceeding surprise and vexation, not more than three or four pounds could be discovered.
“This is very unfortunate, Thornton,” said Sir Sidney. “However, get under weigh, for, by Jove, I perceive a large lugger coming out, no doubt to attack us.”
Our hero accordingly got the lugger under sail, though, as the wind blew, and with the strong flood tide making, there was very little prospect of reaching the Diamond, though they did not perceive it at the time, so very much engaged were they. Captain Baptiste Gaudet, the late skipper of the Vengeance, who was put ashore with his crew, seeing the way the wind and tide set, manned two large boats, with their crews well armed,and pulled out for the lugger, to recapture her. In the meantime, several shots from the shore reached the vessel. All, on board, however, were prepared for a desperate resistance. As the enemy came up, a continued discharge of musketry took place from both vessels, but the lugger discharged her four-pounders rammed full of grape into the Vengeance, wounding several of the men, and a young midshipman named Beecroft. This gallant young lad refused to leave the deck, merely tying a handkerchief over the wound.
“I fear, Thornton,” said Sir Sidney, stooping to pick up his hat, which a musket ball had knocked off, “I fear we shall have to give in, or needlessly sacrifice our brave fellows; there are four dead already, and I see those boats coming up are full of men.”
“I wish most devoutly, Sir Sidney,” said William Thornton, anxiously gazing seaward, “that you had not turned back, the consequence would then have been as nothing. Your capture would be a terrible blow to the service.”
There was no time for words, for a furious fire commenced with musketry from the boats from the crew of the Vengeance, who came alongside, scrambled up over the quarters with loud cries and shouts.
“There!” exclaimed Baptiste Gaudet, the skipper, pointing to William Thornton, who with Saunders alone was making a desperate attempt to drive back a boat’s crew boarding over the starboard quarter, whilst Sir Sidney was repelling the troops in the boats, “Sacre tonnerre! that’s the man who shot my brother-in-law. Don’t kill him; drag him down, and that fellow with him.”
But our hero and Saunders were not so easily dragged down; a furious fight ensued, and several of the crew of the Vengeance were struck to the deck. Just as Sir Sidney surrendered, they were overpowered and at last disarmed, dragged down the companion stairs by the legs, and kicked brutally; they were then strongly bound hand and foot to ring bolts on the cabin-floor, and then Captain Gaudet left them, swearing savagely he would make them remember him before he had done with them.
Whilst this was occurring, Sir Sidney Smith and the midshipman, Westly Wright, were forcibly thrust into the boats alongside with the rest of the men. The former repeatedly asked after William Thornton, but the men only insulted him; they were at once carried ashore and landed at Havre. Sir Sidney and Wright were marched to Rouen, and thence to Paris. This occurrence, however, is history, and has nothing to do with our future narrative; we return to our hero and his faithful follower, Bill Saunders.
Though severely bruised, and with one or two sharp cutlasswounds, William Thornton and Bill Saunders felt little the worse, experiencing more indignation at the treatment they had received than pain from their injuries.
The cabin, on the floor of which our hero and his fellow-captive were stretched, was large and commodious, but perfectly dark, with the exception of a faint light through some bulls’ eyes, a tarpaulin having been thrown over the skylight.
“Do these villains mean to murder us, sir?” asked Bill Saunders, after a fierce and vain effort to free himself. “I cannot understand why they should treat your honour in this way.”
“I cannot exactly understand it myself, Bill,” replied William Thornton. “I soon recognised the skipper of this infernal lugger, that has brought such misfortune upon us and our Commander, as the instigator of this attack upon us, for I heard him say, ‘Pull them down, don’t kill them;’ so to cut our throats is not their intention, or they would have done so at once.”
“I’m blessed, your honour, if I did not also see the same black-looking rascal I stuck my pike into once before; I thought I had settled his hash then, and I’m blowed if he aint turned up again. I expect if we don’t get the use of our fins they will cut our windpipes, after they gives us a dose of torture; not that what we are enjoying now is pleasant by any means.”
“No,” returned our hero, “it’s not pleasant to be trussed up like barn-door fowls. I wonder what they have done with our Commander and the rest of our comrades.”
“Look, your honour; I’m blowed, now my eyes are getting accustomed to this here light, if I don’t see a big clasp knife hanging by a cord to a key in the locker, behind your honour, close to your feet; only try, sir, if you can kick it out.”
Lieutenant Thornton worked himself round, and by a powerful effort got on his knees, and seeing the knife, after repeated and tiresome efforts, he jerked it out of the lock, and then lying down contrived to get hold of it. As he did so they heard the companion pushed back, and some persons descended the stairs. Our hero had only time to say:
“Lie still, and be quiet, whatever they say or do.”
“Blow me,” muttered Bill to himself, “it’s easy to do that, seeing I don’t understand a word of their cursed lingo, and haven’t the power even to rub my nose; curse them!”
The cabin door was opened, and two men entered, one holding a lantern. Lieutenant Thornton at once recognised the skipper of the Vengeance, and the mate of the Bon-Citoyen, whom our hero recollected having put on board the Babet, who was afterwards put ashore at Belleisle by Lieutenant O’Loughlin, and finally, after the departure of the corvette, got onboard the Vengeance, with several more of the schooner’s men.
“So,” exclaimed Baptiste Gaudet, with a savage oath, throwing the faint light of the lantern on the young Lieutenant’s features.
“So there you are—curse you! it was you that shot my brother-in-law, and took his schooner. Sacre diable! I have a mind now to slice your throat, only I’ll work with a bitter revenge out of you.”
“You are a cowardly, ungrateful ruffian,” said Lieutenant Thornton, calmly, “I gave you the quarter you vowed to refuse us, and besides treated you well, and even restored you to liberty, and this is the return you make.”
“It’s a cursed deal too good for you; and this beast too,” added the mate of the Citizen, giving Bill Saunders a savage kick, “run his pike into me;” and again he brutally kicked Saunders, whose blood was fever heat with rage.
“Ah! let them bide,” said Gaudet, “till we come back, and that cursed frigate has put to sea. Mind if I don’t cut your hides into strips; I swore to do so, if we had the luck to catch you: I’ll do it, and pitch your carcases into the sea;” and with fearful oaths, each administering a kick to their helpless captives, they left the cabin, closing the companion.
Bill Saunders foamed at the mouth, till he was in danger of suffocation. He bore the kicks administered to himself tolerably; but when he saw the skipper do the same to his Lieutenant, the honest fellow thought his heart would burst.
“Your honour,” said Bill, half choking, “I should like to have died, if it would have saved you. The villain; I only wish to live to have my hands round that ruffian’s throat.”
“Well, Bill, our turn may come yet. I have the knife, and presently we will see what we can do with it; the difficulty is, our hands being bound behind us, to open it.”
“Try, sir!” exclaimed Bill; “for the love of heaven do hold it to my mouth. I’ll open it with my teeth!”
“I am so fast to this ring-bolt that I cannot turn.”
After many efforts, however, Bill succeeded in opening the clasp knife.
“Ah! blow me, if we aint a match for them now,” exultingly exclaimed Bill, who, clasping the knife between his bound hands, contrived to saw his cords through, with only one or two slight cuts. In five minutes more, by great exertion, they were both totally freed from their bonds, Bill declaring he could then face a dozen Frenchmen, whilst his master breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. They did not fear death, but to be probably stripped, and cruelly flogged by a set of piratical ruffians, was infinitely worse than death.
“Now, keep quiet a few minutes,” said our hero, as Bill stretched his huge frame, to recover his powers, as he declaredthat he might annihilate every soul remaining on board the lugger. They listened for several moments, but did not hear a single foot pacing the deck above.
“Most of them have gone ashore,” whispered the Lieutenant.
“Let us look in the lockers, your honour; we may find cutlasses, or pistols.”
Opening the lockers with the key they picked up from the floor—to their intense joy, they found the large locker full of cutlasses. Bill almost shrieked for joy as he grasped a brace of them.
“Now, your honour, let us burst up the companion, and slice their gizzards.”
Cautiously ascending it, as they reached the top, they heard a step pacing the deck, and then our hero heard a voice saying—
“Do you see the boats, François?”
“No,” returned a voice in the forepart of the vessel. “Sacre diable! how long they are, and here’s a fine breeze and a strong down tide.”
“Now, Bill, put your shoulder to the companion, and up with it, there are only a few on board; the rest, I suppose, are ashore with the boats.”
“More’s the pity,” growled Bill, as putting his strength to the slide, he sent it into shivers with a loud crash. A volley of oaths from four, or more men, located in various parts of the lugger, saluted the liberated captives as they sprang upon the deck.
“Fire the bow-gun, Pierre! fire the gun!” shouted the man near the companion, drawing his cutlass, and, joined by four others with boarding pikes, making a desperate rush at our hero and Bill. But the Frenchmen had to do with two remarkably powerful, active men, both very expert in the use of the cutlass; the man ran, however, with a lighted match, and fired the bow-gun; its loud report echoing from the shore. Our hero’s superior skill soon told upon his adversaries, two of whom fell dead upon the deck; Bill, dashing at three others, they fled; one in his terror threw himself overboard, whilst the remaining two, leaping down the fore-hatch into the fore-cabin, left the victors in complete possession of the Vengeance.
“Cut the cable, Bill; cut the cable!” shouted our hero, running to the tiller; “hack it with your cutlass.”
Bill stumbled upon an axe, and with a single blow severed the cable, when instantaneously the lugger, in the strong tide and wind, swung round. By great good fortune, and the carelessness of those on shore, drinking and carousing, the only craft that could have pursued them with a chance of success had just taken the ground, and was hard and fast, when themen, alarmed by the sound of the bow-gun, rushed down to their boats. It was a dark night, with a strong land wind, and a fast ebb tide. Lieutenant Thornton could hear the splash of oars in boats passing; so lashing the heavy tiller amidship, he hastened forward to see if he and Bill could run up the immense fore-lug. There was a Spanish windlass attached to the mast; so taking a turn of the haulyards, they put their whole strength to it, and ran it up, perspiring with the effort. Making fast the sheet-blocks, our hero ran aft, just as the foremost boat, finding they began to lose ground, the moment the lug filled, fired their muskets into the lugger, but with no further result than knocking a few splinters out of the bulwarks.
“I wish I could give you a dose of grape, you beggars!” exclaimed Bill, shaking his clenched hand at the boats, now dropping astern fast.
The reports of the guns evidently aroused the attention of the forts on the north shore, for our successful adventurers beheld lights moving along the front of the battery; but as it was impossible for those on the battery to know what was the cause of the firing, and the darkness of the night rendering the lugger almost imperceptible, she ran past unsuspected. Bill Saunders, with our hero’s help, set the mizen, and under these two sails the Vengeance ran out rapidly into the outer road. They did not expect to see the Diamond at anchor after the events of the day, but fully expected, as they ran off the land and daylight came, to see her either lying to or standing off and on.
“What shall I do with the two vagabonds forward?” questioned Bill, coming aft to take the tiller; “one is dead, and the other has an ugly clip over the left eye. Your honour hits hard; I seed him catch it as he drove his boarding pike at your breast. There are two others below; I can work these lubbers on deck and make them lend a hand.”
“Let us run three or four miles out, Bill; we can then lie to for daylight. You can, however, put the dead man overboard, and we will see what we can do for the one that is wounded. Just go and see if you can find a lantern. I should be glad if you could also lay your hand upon something stronger than water. I have lost some blood and feel a little fagged; nothing to signify though.”
“We want to splice the main brace, your honour, after our scrimmage, and mayhap I may find a keg of brandy;” and Bill dived down below, and after a good search found plenty of wine and some brandy in the steward’s lockers, besides three or four days’ provisions.
A little brandy and biscuit refreshed both our hero and his follower. The night continued dark and the breeze very fresh,shifting as they cleared the outward harbour, blowing partly along the coast. The Vengeance was one of the fastest and handsomest privateer luggers out of a French port. She was above one hundred and sixty tons, and remarkably well provided with every requisite.
Bill taking the tiller, our hero proceeded with a lighted lantern to explore the cabin. He discovered the late skipper’s stock of garments, and a locker full of pistols; but no store anywhere in the cabin of powder and ball. Returning upon deck, he found Bill consoling himself with a large lump of salt beef and a bottle of wine.
“She’s a very fine craft, sir,” said Saunders, “and slips through the water under her fore-lug, though only half hoisted, like a witch. It was nearly up with us, sir, only for the knife.”
“In truth it was, Bill! Such events should teach us never to despair, and that there is a Providence always watching over us. Now if we cannot make out the Diamond we must make a run across the Channel. Rouse up those two fellows in the fore cuddy to help us to make sail, hunger will freshen them up if they should turn sulky.”
“What’s that smoke?” continued our hero, rather startled at seeing a wreath of smoke issuing from the fore cuddy; “run forward, Bill, and see what those fellows are about, they cannot have been so mad as to fire the craft!”
Saunders rushed forward, and as he did so the two Frenchmen staggered up on deck, and seeing Bill alone threw their arms round his neck, strove to drag him down, and to stick him with their open knives; smoke and flame at the same time bursting up through the hatch.
Bill shook off his two opponents as a mastiff would a lapdog, and with a terrible blow with his clenched fist, sent one sprawling against the windlass. Lieutenant Thornton had rushed to his assistance, but Bill wanted no help, for his other assailant fled to the bows with savage oaths, exulting that they had fired the vessel.
“Did you think,” he fiercely exclaimed, as our hero came up, “that you were going to have the Vengeance for a prize? We are all sworn to sink or fire her.”
“Then blow me,” said Bill Saunders, when the Lieutenant told him what the man had said, “if you shall either sink or be burned in her,” and seizing the Frenchman in his terrible grasp before our hero could prevent him, he hurled him over the bows.
Despite their imminent danger, the Lieutenant ran aft and threw the drowning wretch a rope; he made an effort to grasp it, failed, and sank with a despairing cry. Thus the wretchwho did not fear to meet death by fire, shrieked in despair in meeting his doom by water.
“Haul aft the sheet, Bill!” shouted our hero; “it’s quite in vain to think of extinguishing this fire; we must run her ashore round yonder headland. Providentially the wind permits us to make the land without a tack.”
As the deck caught, the flames threw a vivid glare over the waters, as the lugger dashed on for the land, as if urged by her prospect of certain destruction. It was an awful moment! The flames spread to the rigging of the lugger, and then the sail, and the sheets being consumed, the fiery mass dashed wildly about, as the flames roared, the strong breeze increasing their force.
“Come down below, Bill, she will strike in a few moments, and let us put on the Frenchmen’s garments; who knows but we may do something for freedom yet.”
“Curse the villains!” cried Bill; “they have burned the craft, and now I am to be turned into a frog-eating, soup-swilling Frenchman.”
In a few minutes they were completely rigged in two French seamen’s garments, and the furious flames hurried them on deck just as the lugger struck upon a reef, gave two or three heavy lurches, heeled over, and sunk in deep water under a lofty cliff, extinguishing the flames of the hull, and leaving the remnants of the burning sail fluttering in the wind. That part of the deck unconsumed was level with the water, but the swell over the bank washed over it. Lieutenant Thornton and Saunders, half blinded by the smoke and flying sparks from the burning sail, threw themselves over the side, a few strokes brought them ashore under the cliff. Landing upon some sharp and slippery rocks, and shaking themselves as they landed and clambered over the rocks, our hero said to his companion—
“We must get as far from this spot as we can, and dry ourselves in the morning sun, before we reconnoitre inland.”
“Ah! your honour, it was a bad job. I ought to have pitched those two lubbers overboard at first;” and growling and lamenting, Bill followed his officer along the base of the cliff, where we must leave them, and retrace our narrative many years in our next chapter.