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Ben Burton, a fiction by William H. G. Kingston |
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Chapter 18 |
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_ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The brig was ours, but we were not to be allowed to carry her off without a struggle. There were certainly not less than twenty prows, each of them carrying from fifty to a hundred men; and though the frigate's guns would have dispersed them like chaff before the wind, she was too far off to render us any assistance. We had therefore to depend upon the guns of the brig for our defence. They had all been discharged probably by her former crew, who had struggled desperately in her defence. Several of them lay about the deck, cut down when the pirates boarded. They appeared to be Dutchmen, with two or three natives. One of the mates and I, with a couple of men, were ordered down immediately we got on board to bring up shot and powder from the magazine. On our way I looked into the cabin. There, a sight met my eyes which made me shudder. Close to the entrance lay on his back a tall, fine looking old gentleman with silvery locks, while further in, two young women, their skin somewhat dark, but very handsome, they seemed to me, and well dressed, lay clasped in each other's arms, perfectly dead. It seemed as if the same bullet had killed them both. We had no time, however, to make further observations, but hurrying down we found that the magazine was open. We immediately sent up a supply of powder, as well as round-shot, which were stowed not far off. We were hurrying on deck again, when I thought I saw something glittering under the ladder. It was a man's eye. Repressing the impulse to cry out, I told Esse what I had seen. At the same moment we sprang down and seized the man, Esse receiving a severe cut as we did so. At the same instant a pistol bullet whistled by my ear. It was shot at the magazine, but happily it was at too great a distance to allow the flash to ignite the powder. Fortunately my right hand was free, and drawing my dirk, I pinned our antagonist through the throat to the deck. He still struggled, but another blow from my companion silenced him for ever. I felt a sensation come over me I had never before experienced, but it was not a time to give way to my feelings. Had I not discovered the man, we should probably in a few minutes have all been blown into the air. The prows were coming rapidly on. "If we had a breeze we should do well," observed our commanding officer, "but if not we shall have tough work to keep these fellows off." Our guns were loaded and run out. "We must not throw a shot away," observed the Lieutenant. He kept looking out in hopes of a breeze. The topsails had been loosened, and all was ready for making sail. "Cut the cable," he shouted at length. "Sheet home the topsails! Man the starboard braces! Up with the helm!" Our sails filled and the vessel's head slowly turned away from the shore, just as the nearest prow was a dozen fathoms from us. A couple of shot threw her crew into confusion, and before they could grapple us we glided by them, every instant gathering way. "Give the next the stem," shouted the Lieutenant. We did so, but we had scarcely way enough to do the vessel much injury. The other prows were now gathering thickly round us, and it was time for us to open on them with our guns. The enemy had no great guns, but the instant we began firing, they returned the compliment with matchlocks and javelins, which came flying thickly on board. As we had to fight both sides at once, we had but little time to use our own small-arms. However, while the men were working the guns, Esse and I and another midshipman loaded the muskets with which the men fired while the guns were being sponged and loaded, we youngsters doing our part by firing the muskets which were not used. So rapidly did we work our guns, that many of the prows at a distance hesitated to approach us, while those which got near were quickly half knocked to pieces. "Hurrah! There goes one of them down!" sung out Kiddle, who was hauling in his gun. "And there's another! And another!" shouted others of the crew. The breeze was increasing. Again the prows came on on both sides, but our guns were all loaded, and we gave them such a dose, few of our guns missing, that once more they dropped astern in confusion. The wind had now reached the frigate, which under all sail was standing towards us. When the pirates saw this they well knew that their chance of victory was gone, and the crews of the headmost ones, again firing their matchlocks and darting a few more spears at us, pulled round, and made off with all speed towards the shore. Luffing up, we brought our broadside to bear upon them, and gave them a few parting shots, our crew giving a hearty cheer in token of victory. We were soon up to the frigate, when Captain Pemberton ordered us by signal to run back, and keep as close in shore as we could, in order to watch the proceedings of the pirates. However, before long it again fell a calm, and both the frigate and brig had to come to an anchor. Soon after, the Captain and several officers came on board the brig to examine her, and to ascertain more particularly what she was, and who were the murdered persons on board. Among others was Mr Noalles the pilot. No sooner did he enter the cabin than he started back with a cry of horror. "What is the matter? Who are those?" asked the Captain, seeing the glance he cast at the dead man and the two ladies. "Little did I expect to see them thus," he answered. "They were my friends, from whom I have often when at Batavia received great attention. That old man was one of the principal merchants in the place, and those poor girls were his daughters," and again I observed the look of grief and horror with which Mr Noalles regarded them. There had apparently been two or three other passengers on board, but what had become of them, or the remainder of the crew, we could find nothing on board to tell us. The sight of those poor girls, cruelly murdered in their youth and beauty, was enough certainly to make the hardest heart on board bleed, and yet how much worse might have been their fate. A prize crew was put on board the brig, but of course the cabin was held sacred till the murdered people were committed to their ocean grave. At first it was proposed to bury them on shore, but a strong force would have been required had we landed, and as their remains might afterwards have been disturbed, it was determined to commit them to the deep. For this purpose the next morning the Captain came on board the brig with most of the officers, the sailmaker having in the meantime closely fastened up each form in several folds of stout canvas, with a heavy shot at the feet. As Mr Noalles informed the Captain the deceased were Protestants, he used the burial service from the Church of England prayer book. The words, indeed, sounded peculiarly solemn to our ears. All present probably had heard it over and over again when a shipmate had died from wounds in battle or sickness brought on in the service, but their deaths were all in the ordinary way. These people had been cut off in a very different manner. I remember particularly those words, "In the midst of life we are in death." They made an impression on me at the time, and more so from what afterwards occurred. As they were uttered the old man's corpse was allowed to glide off slowly into the calm ocean, into the depths of which it shot down rapidly. The bodies of the poor girls were launched one by one in the same manner, and I could not help jumping into the rigging to watch them, as the two shrouded figures went down and down in the clear water, till gradually they were lost to view. Most of us then returned on board the frigate. Such stores as the brig required were sent to her, as well as a prize crew, and she was then despatched to Amboyna to bring the frigate certain stores which it appeared she required. As our ship was supposed to be cruising in another direction, we remained on board, in the hopes of falling in with her. A light breeze towards evening enabled the brig to get under weigh three or four days after the circumstances I have just related. Esse, who drew very well, made a sketch of her as she stood along the land, the rays of the setting sun shedding a pink glow on her canvas, while the whole ocean was lighted up with the same rosy hue. One side of the picture was bounded by the horizon, the other by the yellow shores and the lofty broken tree-covered heights of the island. We remained at anchor, intending to sail in the morning, should there be sufficient wind to enable us to move. As the sun was sinking into the ocean, the sky and water for a few seconds were lighted up with a glow of brightest orange, which faded away as the shades of night came stealing across the water from the east. In a short time the stars overhead burst forth, and shone down upon us, their light reflected in the mirror-like expanse on which we floated. The heat was very great. Esse and Pember had the middle watch under the Third-Lieutenant of the ship (the second had gone away in the prize). The heat making me unwilling to turn into my hammock, I continued to walk the deck with Esse. Sometimes we stopped and leaned against a gun-carriage, talking, as midshipmen are apt to talk, of home, or future prospects, or of late occurrences. "That foreign-looking pilot aboard here is a strange fellow," observed Esse to me. "The people think him not quite right in his mind. They say he talks in his sleep, and did you observe his look when he caught sight of the murdered people aboard the brig?" I did not, however, agree with Dicky's notions. "The man had been employed on board ships of war for many years, I am told," I answered. "And if he was not a respectable character it is not likely that they would take him." "As to that I have my doubts," answered Esse. "All they look to is to get a good pilot who knows the ugly navigation of these seas, and that, I suppose, at all events, he does. But see, who is that on the other side of the deck?" As he spoke he pointed to a person who was standing, apparently looking out at some object far away across the sea. "Yes, that is he," I whispered. "I hope he did not hear us." "If he did it does not signify," said Esse. While we were looking at him, the man walked directly aft, and remained gazing, as he had done before, into the distance over the taffrail. The watch at length came to an end. "I shall caulk it out on deck," said I. Esse agreed to do the same. Indeed several of the crew were sleeping on deck--Kiddle and Brady among them. There also was Pember. Indeed it seemed surprising that anybody could manage to exist in the oven-like heat which prevailed in the lower part of the ship. "Sound slumber to you, Burton," said Esse, and he and I before a minute passed were fast asleep. How long we had slept I do not know, but I was awoke with the most terrific roar I had ever heard. I felt myself lifted right up into the air, and then, as it were, shoved off with tremendous violence from the deck on which I was lying, and plunged into the water. Down! Down! I sank. My ears seemed cracking with the continued roar. My breath was going. The horror of deep waters was upon me. Then suddenly I appeared to be bounding up again. I thought it was all a dream; I expected to find myself in my hammock, or in my bed at Whithyford, and certainly not struggling amidst the foaming waters in the Indian Seas. _ |
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