Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 23

For a few seconds after the disappearance of the brigantine there was a deep hush over the human throng. Every soul was touched with the sublimity of the spectacle, and an impression, not unlike that with which a child looks on death, rested for an instant on all. But it was only for an instant: the situation in which the two parties were so suddenly and so singularly placed, in such relative positions to each other, flashed upon their minds, and every eye lighted up with the fire of conflict.

"Farewell to the brave galley!" said Kyd, as he saw the flag at her peak trail on the water as she went down. "Now, my boys, we have no vessel save this! Five minutes will show whether it belongs to his majesty or 'the Kyd.' Let us sweep yonder honest folk from her, boys,"

he cried, pointing aft, where the brig's crew were resolutely drawn up before the quarter-deck under their captain, by whose side stood, with a resolute eye and fearless att.i.tude, his youthful secretary. "But, on your lives, spare the captain! Also harm not that fair youth beside him.

I like his face for its resemblance to one I once knew. Now at them, and fight like devils, for either you or they must be driven overboard!"

"Receive them steadily and with firm front, my men," cried the captain of the brig; "remember, your lives depend on retaining your s.h.i.+p. Do not forget you are British seamen, fighting for your king and country, your wives and sweethearts! and that your foes are a set of bloodthirsty bucaniers, who fight from desperation, and show neither mercy nor favour. Edwin, my young friend, your station is not here."

"I will not leave your side," he said, firmly.

"Nay, then, here they come like mad devils. G.o.d and our country! Meet them half way! St. George and at them!"

He was the first to set the example, and met the desperate charge almost single handed. The number of pirates was more than seventy, while the crew and officers of the brig did not exceed sixty. Nearly the whole of these were now engaged; those at a distance, who were unable to mingle in the melee and use their swords, briskly discharging their firearms, while those of either party on the skirts of the fight cheered their comrades on with loud cries. For a few moments the brig's crew had the advantage, and pressed their a.s.sailants back on every hand, while from side to side flowed the heady current of battle, and the human ma.s.ses swayed this way and that like an agitated sea; and, with a roar still more terrible than the ocean in its wildest fury ever sent up, shouts of onset, cries of rage or pain, yells, and execrations filled the air, mingled with the reports of pistols, the clash of steel, and the strange thunder of a hundred feet upon the hollow decks. At length the seamen gave way before their desperate antagonists, whom the cheering voice of their leader inspired with tenfold courage and ferocity.

"At them. Leave not a man alive! One good blow and the brig is ours.

Bear them down! Give no quarter! Ha, Fitzroy! Ha! do we meet again! I have sought thee to enjoy this moment. Back, hounds," he shouted to his men; "will ye press me? there is meaner game for you! I alone deal with him."

"The same moment, then, crowns my wish and thine," said Fitzroy, crossing his weapon.

They had exchanged a few fierce pa.s.ses without effect, when they were separated by the tide of the conflict, and borne to opposite sides of the deck. At this moment Edwin the secretary, who had been animating the crew by his cheering cries, said quickly in the ear of Fitzroy,

"Make a sudden charge with all your force, save six men to man the two after guns; drive them back to the forecastle, if possible, and then retreat, and I will, at the same moment, turn upon them the pieces which I have already had loaded with grape." This was spoken with rapidity and clearness.

"It shall be done," was the stern reply. "Ho, my brave tars! one blow for merry England! one good blow for the king. Charge them all at once.

Follow me. Hurrah for the king!"

"Hurrah for King Billy, hurrah!" shouted the seamen, with one voice, catching the spirit of their young captain.

So sudden and well directed was the charge, that the pirates gave back in a body till they reached the windla.s.s, when, in a voice like a trumpet, Fitzroy shouted,

"Every Englishman throw himself upon his face! Fire!"

"Down!" re-echoed Kyd, instinctively, at the same moment.

Disciplined to obey the lightest order, every sailor cast himself upon the deck; but most of the pirates heard too late the warning command of their chief, and the same instant, from both of the quarter-deck guns, a shower of grape whistled like a whirlwind over the heads of the crew, while with the roar of cannon mingled the groans and shrieks of half a score of bucaniers.

"Vengeance! vengeance! Will ye be slaughtered like dogs! Upon them! Cut them down! Leave not one alive! Vengeance!"

Loud and terrific was the cry of vengeance, followed by a rush of the pirates aft that was irresistible. The crew were cut down scarcely ere they had risen to their feet, and sabred with h.e.l.lish ferocity wherever they could be grappled with. In a moment's s.p.a.ce two thirds of the seamen, who had been seized with a sudden panic at the demoniac rush of the pirates, whom they expected to have seen discomfited by the wholesale slaughter of their comrades, fell a prey to their savage ferocity, and the decks were deluged with their blood. Many leaped overboard, and others sprang into the rigging to fall dead into the sea.

"On, on! the brig is ours!" shouted the pirate chief, waving his reeking sabre. "Charge the quarter-deck!"

Thither Fitzroy, with Edwin, had retreated with the remnant of his crew, which were scarcely twenty in number.

"Surrender!" demanded Kyd.

"With our lives only!" was the firm reply.

"Dash at them, ye devils! But see ye touch not the two I have marked as my own game! Let your blades drink deep; we shall soon be masters here.

Now on!"

They were received by a discharge of pistols, which only increased the ferocity of those who escaped the fire, and, cutla.s.s in hand, the quarter-deck was carried after a desperate resistance. Fitzroy was taken prisoner with much difficulty, and at the cost of several lives of his a.s.sailants, while Kyd himself disarmed the secretary. To a man the brave crew were slain, either in fair fight while defending their station, or ma.s.sacred in cold blood at the termination of the sanguinary conflict.

The pirates were now masters of the brig, though its conquest had cost them full half of their number.

"Clear the decks of both dead and wounded!" said the victor, leaning on his b.l.o.o.d.y sabre and gazing over the decks, which wore the aspect of a slaughter-house.

"Of our own men?" said he who has before been named as Lawrence.

"Ay! every man that cannot rise on his feet and walk. We want no hospital of the brig!"

At this order one or two of the wounded pirates attempted to get to their legs; but finding, after several ineffectual struggles, that it was out of their power, fell back powerless, with execrations on their lips, which had hardly ceased before their living bodies parted the crimson flood alike with the dead. The sun still shone upon the scene of carnage, and, ere he set, the brig was cleared of the bodies of both pirate and seaman; the decks were washed; sail was made; the new crew were posted at their different stations as they had been, though in fewer numbers, on board their former vessel; and, half an hour after the conflict, as the disk of the sun sunk behind the Highlands of Monmouth, scarcely a vestige of the terrific contest was apparent in the orderly exterior and accurate nautical appointments of the captured vessel.

The moon rose like a s.h.i.+eld of pearl, and flung her pale, snowy light along the dark waves, and silvered the sails of the brig as she went bowling along over the sparkling surges. On the quarter-deck sat Captain Fitzroy and his youthful secretary. They were unarmed, and the elder manacled with heavy irons; but the younger was unbound. Not far from them, at times stopping to survey them, walked moodily their captor, his brow knit with thought, and his lips compressed with fierce resolution.

At length he stopped, and said to an inferior officer who stood in the waste leaning over the bulwarks and watching the swift and steady progress of the vessel through the water,

"Griffin, prepare the plank!"

"You do not mean--"

"It matters not to you what I mean. Obey me! You are given of late to question my orders too boldly. Bring the brig to and get out the plank,"

he reiterated, in a firm manner.

"There has been blood enough shed," said the man, with dogged determination, folding his arms and looking his commander in the face.

"I will do no more of it."

"Ha! by the living spirit! Mutiny?"

"I will be a butcher no longer, be it mutiny or not. I am sick of it."

"Will you to your duty, sir?"

"To work the s.h.i.+p, but not to take more life," said the officer, steadily.

"You are mad, Griffin! My authority must not be questioned, even by you.

I would not take your life," he added, placing his hand on the b.u.t.t of a pistol and half drawing it from his belt. "You cannot be alone in this mutiny--you wear too bold a front."

"Nor am I. Ho! lads--_a Griffin! a Griffin!_"

The loud cry of the mutineer was responded to by the shout of eight or ten pirates, who instantly placed themselves, with drawn cutla.s.ses, around him.

"By the cross! it is well matured!" muttered Kyd, with terrible calmness. "Back, fellows! To your posts! You, Griffin--for the last time--to your station, sir, and bring the brig to!"

"Never, sir! Draw and charge. Now is our time!" he cried to his party.

A cry between a yell and the sound made by the gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth escaped the infuriated bucanier chief. Like a tiger, he sprung upon them single-handed, and struck back half a score of blades with a single broad sweep of his cutla.s.s, while those who wielded them stood appalled.

"Back, dogs! Do ye fear me singly? Oh, ho, cowards! Stand where ye are!

and you, traitor," he cried, breaking the cutla.s.s of their leader short to its hilt, "go to your duty! I spare your life!"

"Never!"