"Thunder of heaven!" cried the General, "that was a close shave! They must have guns made on purpose.""Oh! when that one yonder speaks, look you, you have to hold your tongue," said a sailor. "The Parisian would not be afraid to meet an English man-of-war.""It is all over with us," the captain cried in desperation; he had pointed his telescope landwards, and saw not a sign from the shore.
"We are further from the coast than I thought.""Why do you despair?" asked the General. "All your passengers are Frenchmen; they have chartered your vessel. The privateer is a Parisian, you say? Well and good, run up the white flag, and--""And he would run us down," retorted the captain. "He can be anything he likes when he has a mind to seize on a rich booty!""Oh! if he is a pirate--"
"Pirate!" said the ferocious looking sailor. "Oh! he always has the law on his side, or he knows how to be on the same side as the law.""Very well," said the General, raising his eyes, "let us make up our minds to it," and his remaining fortitude was still sufficient to keep back the tears.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before a second cannon-shot, better aimed, came crashing through the hull of the /Saint-Ferdinand/.
"Heave to!" cried the captain gloomily.
The sailor who had commended the Parisian's law-abiding proclivities showed himself a clever hand at working a ship after this desperate order was given. The crew waited for half an hour in an agony of suspense and the deepest dismay. The /Saint-Ferdinand/ had four millions of piastres on board, the whole fortunes of the five passengers, and the General's eleven hundred thousand francs. At length the /Othello/ lay not ten gunshots away, so that those on the /Saint-Ferdinand/ could look into the muzzles of her loaded guns. The vessel seemed to be borne along by a breeze sent by the Devil himself, but the eyes of an expert would have discovered the secret of her speed at once. You had but to look for a moment at the rake of her stern, her long, narrow keel, her tall masts, to see the cut of her sails, the wonderful lightness of her rigging, and the ease and perfect seamanship with which her crew trimmed her sails to the wind.
Everything about her gave the impression of the security of power in this delicately curved inanimate creature, swift and intelligent as a greyhound or some bird of prey. The privateer crew stood silent, ready in case of resistance to shatter the wretched merchantman, which, luckily for her, remained motionless, like a schoolboy caught in flagrant delict by a master.
"We have guns on board!" cried the General, clutching the Spanish captain's hand. But the courage in Gomez's eyes was the courage of despair.
"Have we men?" he said.
The Marquis looked round at the crew of the /Saint-Ferdinand/, and a cold chill ran through him. There stood the four merchants, pale and quaking for fear, while the crew gathered about some of their own number who appeared to be arranging to go over in a body to the enemy.
They watched the /Othello/ with greed and curiosity in their faces.
The captain, the Marquis, and the mate exchanged glances; they were the only three who had a thought for any but themselves.
"Ah! Captain Gomez, when I left my home and country, my heart was half dead with the bitterness of parting, and now must I bid it good-bye once more when I am bringing back happiness and ease for my children?"The General turned his head away towards the sea, with tears of rage in his eyes--and saw the steersman swimming out to the privateer.
"This time it will be good-bye for good," said the captain by way of answer, and the dazed look in the Frenchman's eyes startled the Spaniard.
By this time the two vessels were almost alongside, and at the first sight of the enemy's crew the General saw that Gomez's gloomy prophecy was only too true. The three men at each gun might have been bronze statues, standing like athletes, with their rugged features, their bare sinewy arms, men whom Death himself had scarcely thrown off their feet.
The rest of the crew, well armed, active, light, and vigorous, also stood motionless. Toil had hardened, and the sun had deeply tanned, those energetic faces; their eyes glittered like sparks of fire with infernal glee and clear-sighted courage. Perfect silence on the upper deck, now black with men, bore abundant testimony to the rigorous discipline and strong will which held these fiends incarnate in check.
The captain of the /Othello/ stood with folded arms at the foot of the main mast; he carried no weapons, but an axe lay on the deck beside him. His face was hidden by the shadow of a broad felt hat. The men looked like dogs crouching before their master. Gunners, soldiers, and ship's crew turned their eyes first on his face, and then on the merchant vessel.
The two brigs came up alongside, and the shock of contact roused the privateer captain from his musings; he spoke a word in the ear of the lieutenant who stood beside him.
"Grappling-irons!" shouted the latter, and the /Othello/ grappled the /Saint-Ferdinand/ with miraculous quickness. The captain of the privateer gave his orders in a low voice to the lieutenant, who repeated them; the men, told off in succession for each duty, went on the upper deck of the /Saint-Ferdinand/, like seminarists going to mass. They bound crew and passengers hand and foot and seized the booty. In the twinkling of an eye, provisions and barrels full of piastres were transferred to the /Othello/; the General thought that he must be dreaming when he himself, likewise bound, was flung down on a bale of goods as if he had been part of the cargo.
A brief conference took place between the captain of the privateer and his lieutenant and a sailor, who seemed to be the mate of the vessel;then the mate gave a whistle, and the men jumped on board the /Saint-Ferdinand/, and completely dismantled her with the nimble dexterity of a soldier who strips a dead comrade of a coveted overcoat and shoes.