Asiatic Breezes Part 14

Without "showing the white feather," he had conducted himself with quite as much prudence as resolution. He had done his best to escape from the bay without any fighting. Before his reformation he was generally "spoiling for a fight" when there was any dispute or difficulty; but on the present occasion he had done his best to avoid one.

He had tried to do just as he believed Louis, his model in morals and conduct, would have done if he had been in command of the Maud. The hearty approval which his mentor had expressed of all he had done so far afforded him intense satisfaction, and he was sure that Captain Ringgold could find no fault with his management up to this moment.

"Here we are, Louis; and, so far as my plan is concerned, we are euchred. It is a failure," said Captain Scott, as he took a survey of the surroundings, which remained precisely the same as they had been from the beginning.

"Through no fault of the plan or yourself, Captain. If there was no channel here to deep water, of course you could not pa.s.s through it,"

replied Louis. "You have done everything you could."

"I have been asking myself if I was to blame for getting into the trap; for we certainly are in a trap," continued Scott. "I followed the instructions of Captain Ringgold to the letter; and when I brought the Maud to her anchorage by the ledge, the pirate was not in sight, and I knew no more of what had become of him than I did in regard to the Guardian-Mother."

"You have no occasion to censure yourself for anything," replied Louis.

"You have obeyed your orders, and our present difficult situation is the result of the non-appearance of the s.h.i.+p. Don't blame yourself, Captain Scott, for not a shadow of an imputation can rest upon your conduct."

"Thank you, my dear fellow. I hope I shall get out of this bay without forfeiting your generous approval," added Scott.

"Here we are, Captain, as you say, and it looks as though we were in a bad sc.r.a.pe. All we have to do is to turn our attention to the manner of getting out of it. If there were any reason to reproach yourself or anybody else, we have no time to attend to that matter. What can be done next?" demanded Louis, rousing his energies to face the difficulty.

"What we do next depends mainly upon what the Fatime does; and she isn't doing anything," replied Captain Scott, apparently roused to new exertion by the burst of energy on the part of his companion in the pilot-house. "I have no doubt Mazagan intends to make an effort to get possession of our millionaire as soon as he has the opportunity; but he will never succeed unless he knocks the Maud all to pieces with his twelve-pounders, which I don't believe he can do, Louis. You have comforted me so effectually, my dear fellow, that I begin to think it is time for me to do something of the same sort for you."

"I don't feel the need of comfort and consolation yet," said Louis quite merrily. "I am not at all alarmed; and what I say is not braggadocio."

"If the Maud is wrecked by the guns and sent to the bottom, we still have the whole island of Cyprus open to us," added the captain.

"To come down to the hard pan of business, allow me to ask a foolish question or two, and you may laugh at them if you please. What is the Fatime waiting for? Why doesn't Mazagan proceed to carry out his threat to capture me?" asked Louis.

"For the simple reason that he cannot; and the question calls for a review of the situation," replied the captain, as he took from his pocket a paper on which he had drawn a diagram of the position of both vessels, with the shape of the bay, the ledge, and the soundings so far as they were known. "Here is the Maud," he continued, making a small cross on the paper at the point in the inside channel where she had come to the shoal water. "There is no way to get out of this place except that by which we came in."

"I understand all that; for we have the sh.o.r.e on one side of us and the ledge on the other, and the channel is not deep enough to permit us to go ahead," added Louis.

"That is our position. The Fatime lies in deep water at least a mile from us. She is a steamer of four hundred tons, and she must draw at least fifteen feet of water; for both of these steamers were built where they put them down deeper in the water than they do in our country. The pirate would take the ground anywhere near the ledge, and she could not come into the channel by which we reached this point. Therefore, she can do nothing; and her guns would not hit us a mile distant, if they would carry a ball as far as that. You can see why she can do nothing yet a while."

"But the tide is rising, and we now have an hour of the flood,"

suggested Louis.

"But the tide is rising for the Fatime as well as for the Maud."

"There was nine feet of water on the ledge at low tide, and there will be twelve feet at high tide."

"That will not be till nine o'clock this evening. But even if it were now I should not dare to undertake the task of piloting the Maud over the ledge; for I know nothing about the soundings on it except on the south edge. That would not do. We must get to deep water by the way we came in here," said the captain very decidedly.

"A shot from the pirate!" shouted Felix at this moment, as he noted the flash.

A moment later the report came to the ears of all on board, and the gun-made noise enough to startle a timid person. All watched for the ball, and saw it strike the water about half way between the two vessels.

"Bully for you, Mazagan!" exclaimed Felix. "You fired at the water, and you hit it."

"He is only trying his gun, and he will do better than that after he gets his hand in," said the captain. "The piece was depressed too much to prove what it would do if properly aimed."

"They are getting up the anchor!" shouted Felix a couple of minutes later, after he had brought his spy-gla.s.s to bear upon the pirate.

"She is evidently going to do something," said the captain, who had taken his usual place at the wheel, while Louis was on the other side of it, where both had remained after the steamer stopped.

"What do you suppose Mazagan intends to do now?" asked Louis.

"I have not the remotest idea, except that, in a general way, he will try to keep us shut up in this channel. For that reason I do not propose to remain here any longer;" and he rang the gong to go ahead.

The tide must have risen six or eight inches by this time, increasing the depth in the channel to that extent. Scott had taken the bearings very carefully when he came in, and he soon rang the speed bell. The Maud proceeded at full speed till she came to the turn in the pa.s.sage, where the captain rang to stop her, in order to take an observation.

The Fatime had not yet got under way, and she appeared to be having some difficulty with her cable or anchor. As soon as the Maud had lost her headway the port gun belched out another flash and cloud of smoke. The Maud was at about the same distance from the pirate as when the latter fired before, and Scott watched with interest for the result of the discharge. The solid shot plumped into the water half a mile from the mark, just as though it had been dropped from some point overhead.

"I don't know much of anything about gunnery, except with four-pounders on a yacht; but that last gun was elevated so that we know about the range of her pieces," said the captain. "It is less than half a mile, and her shots would not do much damage at more than half that distance."

"She has weighed her anchor, and started her screw," reported Felix, who was still watching the enemy with the gla.s.s.

Scott rang the gong, and the Maud went ahead again. At the same time he directed Felipe to be ready to give the steamer her best speed.

"Another shot!" shouted Felix.

This one was discharged from her starboard gun, as she came about; but its range fell considerably short of that of the other piece. The Maud was still in the channel, and the ledge could be seen through the clear water on the port hand; what the soundings were on the starboard hand had not yet been demonstrated. The steamer was moving at her ordinary speed. The Fatime had turned her head to the south; and, though she was still nearly a mile distant, her engine gong could be heard when it rang for the vessel to go ahead.

The pirate soon changed her course, with the apparent intention of "cutting across lots," in order to reach the Maud. A hand was heaving the lead, indicating that Mazagan was not sure of his soundings. She went ahead on the new course not more than the eighth of a mile before she came about, showing that the depth of water was not satisfactory to her commander.

"If the tide were not rising, I should know better what to do; for we might go back to the angle in the channel, out of the reach of the guns, and remain there till the morning tide, and then work out into deep water," said Captain Scott, after he had observed the movements of the enemy for a couple of minutes. "But with two feet more water, the Fatime can go at least up to the verge of the ledge, and that plan would not work anyhow."

"Another gun!" cried Felix, as he caught the flash.

The enemy was a little nearer than before, but the shot fell hardly less than half a mile from the Maud. Mazagan had "swung to" in order to fire this shot, but resumed his course at once. Scott desired to gain some time by leaving the channel, and heading to the south-east. Morris was sounding with his boathook, and reported only thirteen feet when the Maud began to move in that direction.

"Twelve feet and a half!" shouted the first officer a little later.

"This won't do," said Scott, shaking his head. "The water shoals to the southward, and all we can do is to face the music."

"What do you mean by that, Captain?" asked Louis.

Scott made a couple of crosses on his diagram, and pa.s.sed it to his companion.

"The cross on your left is our present position near the outlet of the channel," the captain explained. "On the port we have the ledge, and we can't run over that. On the starboard the water is too shoal for us. We can go neither to the right nor the left."

"Therefore you must run dead ahead."

"Precisely so, or right into the guns of the enemy."

"Couldn't you retreat up the channel again?" asked Louis; and it began to look to him as though "the end of all things had come;" and it even appeared possible that he might be captured, after all.

"Heave the lead, Flix!" called the captain, without answering the question.

"And a half two!" reported the Milesian.