By Conduct and Courage: A Story of the Days of Nelson

“Very well, then, I will head for Jamaica at once. In the meantime my cabin and that of my second in command are at the service of the ladies. There are the sofas, too, in the saloon, and if these are not enough I will get some hammocks slung. I shall myself sleep on deck, and those of you who prefer it can do the same; for the others I will have hammocks slung in the hold.”

Most of the ladies soon came up, but the girl Will had saved did not appear till the next morning. She was very pretty, and likely to be more so. If he had allowed her she would have overwhelmed him with thanks, but he made light of the whole affair. He learned from the other passengers that she was the daughter of one of the richest merchants in Jamaica. At the death of her mother, when she was five years old, she was sent home to England in charge of the governess who had been drowned in the Northumberland, and when this catastrophe occurred had been on her way to rejoin her father. Although saddened by the death of her old friend, she soon showed signs of a disposition naturally bright and cheerful. She bantered Will about his command, and professed to regard L’Agile as a toy ship, expressing great wonder that it was not manned by boy A.B.’s as well as boy officers.

“It must surely seem very ridiculous to you,” she said, “to be giving orders to men old enough to be your father.”

“I can quite understand that it seems so to you,” he said,“for it does to me sometimes; but custom is everything, and I don’t suppose the men give the matter a thought. At any rate they are as ready to follow me as they are the oldest veteran in the service.”

Will carried all the sail he could set, as he was anxious to get the craft free from passengers and to be off in search of the schooner that had escaped him. He was again loaded with thanks by the passengers when they landed, and after seeing them off he went and made his report to the admiral.

“How is this, Mr. Gilmore?” the admiral said as he entered the cabin; “no prizes this time? And who are all those people I saw landing just now?”

Will handed in his report; but, as usual, the admiral insisted on hearing all details.

“But your uniform looks shrunk, Mr. Gilmore,” he said when Will had finished. “You said nothing about being in the water!”

Will was then obliged to relate how he had rescued the girl from the cabin.

“Well done again, young sir! it is a deed to be as proud of as the capturing of those two pirates. Well done, indeed! Now I suppose you want to be off again?”

“Yes, sir, I should like to sail as soon as possible; in the first place, because I am most anxious to fall in with that schooner and bring the captain and crew in here to be hanged.”

“That is a very laudable ambition. And why in the second place?”

“Because I want to get off before a lot of people come to thank me for saving their relatives, and so on, sir. If I get away at once, then I may hope that before I come back again the whole thing will be forgotten.”

“It oughtn’t to be, for you acted very wisely and gallantly.”

“Well, sir, I don’t want a lot of thanks for only doing what was my duty.”

“Very good, Mr. Gilmore, I understand your feelings, but I quite expect that when you do return you will have to go through the ordeal of being presented with a piece of plate, and probably after that you will have to attend a complimentary ball. Now, you can go back to your ship at once. Here is a letter to the chief of the store department instructing him to furnish you with any stores you may want without waiting for my signature.”

“Thank you very much, sir! I hope, when I return, that I shall bring that pirate in tow. Can I have three months from the present time?”

“Certainly, and I hope you will be able to make good use of it.”

Returning to his ship, Will at once made out the list of the stores he required, and sent Harman on shore with it, telling him to take two boats and bring everything back with him. At five o’clock in the afternoon the two boats returned, carrying all the stores required. The water-tanks had already been filled up, and a quarter of an hour later the cutter was under sail and leaving the harbour.

Will, of course, had nothing whatever to guide him in his search for the schooner beyond the fact that she was heading west at the time when he last saw her. At that time they were to the south of Porto Rico, so he concluded that she was making for Cuba. Every day, therefore, he cruised along the coast of that island, sometimes sending boats ashore to examine inlets, at other times running right out to sea in the hope that the pirate, whose spies he had no doubt were watching his movements, might suppose he had given up the search and was sailing away. Nevertheless, he could not be certain that she would endeavour to avoid him should she catch sight of him, for with a glass the pirate captain could have made out the number of guns L’Agile carried, and would doubtless feel confident in his own superiority, as he would not be able to discover the weight of the guns. Will felt that if the pirate should fight, his best policy would be at first to make a pretence of running, in the hope that in a long chase he might manage to knock away some of the schooner’s spars.

One day he saw the boats, which had gone up a deep inlet, coming back at full speed.

“We saw a schooner up there,” Harman reported; “I think she is the one we are in search of. When we sighted her she was getting up sail.”

“That will just suit me. We will run out to sea at once; that will make him believe we are afraid of him.”

Scarcely had the boats been got on board, and the cutter’s head turned offshore, when the schooner was seen issuing from the inlet. Will ordered every sail to be crowded on, and had the satisfaction of seeing the schooner following his example. He then set the whole of the crew to shift the long-tom from the bow to the stern. Its muzzle was just high enough to project above the taffrail, and in order to hide it better he had hammocks and other material piled on each side of it so as to form a breastwork three feet high.

“They will think,” he said, “that we have put this up as a protection against shot from his bow-chasers.”

After watching the schooner for a quarter of an hour, Will said:

“I don’t think she gains upon us at all; lower a sail over the bow to deaden her way. A small topsail will do; I only want to check her half a knot an hour.”

It was an hour before the schooner yawed and fired her bow-guns.

“That is good,” Will said to Dimchurch; “it shows that she doesn’t carry a long-tom. I thought she didn’t, but they might have hidden it, as we have done. Don’t answer them yet; I don’t want to fire till we get within half a mile of her; then they shall have it as hot as they like.”

The schooner continued to gain slowly, occasionally firing her bow-chasers. When she had come up to within a mile ofL’Agile the cutter was yawed and two broadside guns fired; they were purposely aimed somewhat wide, as Will was anxious that the pirates should not suspect the weight of his metal, and did not wish, by inflicting some small injury, to deter her from continuing the chase. The schooner evidently depended upon the vastly superior strength of her crew to carry the cutter by boarding, and so abstained from attempting to injure her, as the less damage she suffered the better value she would be as a prize.

“They are not more than half a mile off now, I think, sir,”Dimchurch said at last.

“Very well then, we will let her have it.”

The gun was already loaded, so Dimchurch took a steady aim and applied the match. All leapt upon the bulwarks to see the effect of the shot, and a cheer broke from the crew as it struck the schooner on the bow, about four feet above the water. In return the schooner yawed so as to bring her whole broadside to bear on the cutter, and six tongues of flame flashed from her side. At the same moment L’Agile swung round and fired her two starboard guns. Both ships immediately resumed their former positions, and as they did so Dimchurch fired again, his shot scattering a shower of splinters from almost the same spot as the other had struck.

“You must elevate your gun a little more, Dimchurch,”said Will, “and bring a mast about their ears. Get that sail on board!” he shouted; “I don’t want the schooner to get any nearer.”

The order was executed, and the difference in the speed of the cutter was at once manifest. Again and again Dimchurch fired. Several of the shot went through the schooner’s foresail, but as yet her masts were untouched.

“A little more to the right, Dimchurch.”

This time the sailor was longer than usual in taking aim, but when he fired the schooner’s foremast was seen to topple over, and her head flew up into the wind, thus presenting her stern to the cutter.

“She is a lame duck now,” Will said, “but we may as well take her mainmast out of her too. Fire away, and take as good aim as you did last time.”

Ten more shots were fired, and with the last the pirate’s mainmast went over the side.

“Well done, Dimchurch! Now we have her at our mercy. We will sail backwards and forwards under her stern and rake her with grape. I don’t want to injure her more than is necessary, but I do want to kill as many of the crew as possible; it is better for them to die that way than to be taken to Jamaica to be hanged.”

For an hour the cutter kept at work crossing and recrossing her antagonist’s stern, and each time she poured in a volley from two broadside guns and the long-tom. The stern of the schooner was knocked almost to pieces, and the grape-shot carried death along her decks.

“I am only afraid that they will blow her up,” Will said;“but probably, as they have not done so already, her captain and most of her officers are killed, for it would require a desperado to undertake that job.”

At last the black flag was hoisted on a spar at the stern, and then lowered again. When they saw this the crew ofL’Agile stopped firing, and sent up cheer after cheer.

“Now we must be careful, sir,” Dimchurch said; “those scoundrels are quite capable of pretending to surrender, and then, when we board her, blowing their ship and us into the air.”

“You are right, Dimchurch. They might very well do that, for they must know well enough that they can expect no mercy.”

Bringing the cutter to within a hundred yards of the schooner, Will shouted:

“Have you a boat that can swim?” and receiving a reply in the negative, shouted back: “Very well, then, I will drop one to you.”

He then placed the cutter exactly to windward of the schooner, and, lowering one of the boats, to which a rope was attached, let it drift down to the prize.

“Now,” he shouted, “fasten a hawser to that boat; the largest you have.”

There was evidently some discussion among the few men gathered on the deck of the pirate, and, seeing that they hesitated, Will shouted: