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Fitz the Filibuster, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 39. "Never Say Die!" |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. "NEVER SAY DIE!" As long as the excitement kept up, Fitz paced the deck with Poole, but for two or three nights past regular sleep and his eyelids had been at odds. The consequence was that all at once in the silence and darkness, when there was nothing to take his attention, he became very silent, walking up and down the deck mechanically with his companion to keep himself awake, and a short time afterwards for no reason at all that he was aware of, but because one leg went before the other automatically, his will having ceased to convey its desires to these his supporters, and long after Poole had ceased talking to him, he suddenly gave a violent lurch, driving Poole, who was in a similar condition, sideways, and if it had not been for the bulwark close at hand they would both have gone down like skittles. For they were both fast asleep, sound as a top, fast as a church, but on the instant wide-awake and angry. "What did you do that for?" cried Fitz fiercely. "I didn't," cried Poole angrily. "You threw yourself at me." "That I didn't! How could I?" "How should I know? But you've made a great bruise on my elbow; I know that." "Quiet! quiet!" said the mate, in a deep low growl. "Do you want to bring the gunboat down on us, shouting like that?" And he seemed to loom up upon them out of the darkness. "Well, but he--" began Fitz. "Quiet, I tell you! I have been watching you lads these last ten minutes. You've both been rolling about all over the deck, and I expected to see you go down on your noses every moment. Snoring too, one of you was." "Well, that wasn't I, I'm sure," cried Fitz shortly. "Oh, are you?" said the mate. "Well, I'm not. There, you are no use up here, either of you. Go down and tumble into your bunks at once." "But--" began Poole. "You heard what I said, my lad. Go and have a good long snooze, and don't make a stupid of yourself, bandying words like that. The watch have all been laughing at you both. Now then, clear the deck. I am going to keep things quiet." The officer in charge of a deck is "monarch of all he surveys," like Robinson Crusoe of old, according to the poem, and as "his right there is none to dispute," both lads yielded to Burgesses sway, went down to their berths, rolled in just as they were, and the next minute were fast asleep, breathing more loudly than would have been pleasant to any neighbour. But there was none. Their sleep was very short but very solid all the same, and they were ready to spring up wide-awake and hurry on deck just before sunrise, upon hearing the trampling overhead of the watch going through the manoeuvres known as 'bout ship, and then proceeding to obey orders angrily shouted at them by the mate, whose loud voice betokened that he was in an unusual state of excitement, for his words were emphatic in the extreme as he addressed the men after the cry of "all hands on deck," in a way which suggested to one who overheard that they were a gang of the laziest, slowest slovens that ever handled a rope. "Here, rouse up!" cried Poole. "Hear him?" "Hear him? Yes. What's the matter?" "I dunno. Any one would think that we were going to run the gunboat down." The lads ran up on deck, and stared in wonder, for instead of the catastrophe that Poole had verbally portrayed, the reverse seemed the probability. In fact, instead of their tacking against the adverse wind having carried them well out to sea, the progress they had made in a direct line was comparatively small, and to the dismay of both the sleepers as they looked over the stern, there was the gunboat not three miles away, foaming down after them under a full pressure of steam. "How do you account for this?" said Fitz. "I dunno, unless they went right in, got to know that we had just left, and came after us full chase." It was the idea of the moment, and to use the familiar saying, Poole had hit the right nail on the head. It was morning, and Nature's signals were in the east, announcing that the sun was coming up full speed, while the former tactics of tacking against the freshening wind had to be set aside at once, for it was evidently only a question of an hour before the gunboat would be within easy range, and what she might do in the interim was simply doubtful. But the skipper and his mate were hard at work; the course had been altered for another run southward, close along the coast; studding-sail booms were being run out from the yards ready for the white sails to be hoisted; and a trial of speed was being prepared between canvas and steam, proof of which was given from the gunboat by the dense clouds of black smoke rolling out of the funnel and showing how hard the stokers were at work. It was a busy time then; sail after sail filled out till the schooner showed as a cloud of canvas gilded by the rising sun, while she literally skimmed through the water dangerously near to a rocky coast. But as the sun rose higher that danger passed away, for as if by magic the wind dropped, leaving the sails flapping, the graceful vessel no longer dipping her cut-water low-down into the surface and covering the deck with spray. Poole looked at his father and drew his breath hard, for he saw too plainly the peril in which they stood. They were still gliding gently through the water, but more slowly each minute, and riding now upon an even keel, while the gunboat astern was tearing along, literally ploughing her way, and sending a diverging foam-covered wave to starboard and port. "Pretty well all over, Burgess," he said, in a low hoarse voice, and Fitz stole out his hand to grip Poole's wrist and give a warm sympathetic pressure; and he did not draw it back, but stood holding on, listening the while to the mate's slow, thoughtful reply. "I don't know yet," said the latter, half closing his eyes and looking towards the west. "The winds play rum games here sometimes, and you hardly know where you are. They may go through one of their manoeuvres now. This is just about the time, and I shouldn't wonder if we had a sharp breeze from the west again, same as we did yesterday and the day before." "No such luck," said the skipper bitterly. "It won't be the wind off shore; it will be the _Teal_ on. You'll have to make for the first opening you see as soon as there's wind enough, and run her right in. Don't hesitate a moment, Burgess; run her right ashore, and then we must do the best we can with the boats, or swim for it." "Run her right ashore!" said the mate grimly. "Yes--so that she's a hopeless wreck, impossible to get off." "Seems a pity," growled the mate; and his words found an echo in Fitz Burnett's breast. "Yes, but it would be a greater pity for my beautiful little schooner to fall a prize to that wretched tea-kettle there; and I won't have my lads treated as prisoners. I'd sooner we all had to take to the woods." "All right, sir. You're skipper; I'm mate. It's you to give orders, me to carry them out. But I'm beginning to think that they'll have us before we get the wind. You see, it's nearly calm." "Yes," said the skipper, "I see; and I wonder they haven't begun firing before." He walked right aft with the mate, leaving the lads alone, with Poole looking five years older, so blank and drawn was his face. But it brightened directly, as he felt the warm grip of the young middy's hand, and heard his words. "Oh, Poole, old chap," Fitz half whispered, after a glance round to see if they were likely to be overheard, but only to find that every seaman was either intent upon his duty or watching the enemy in expectation of a first shell or ball from the heavy gun. "Oh, Poole, old chap," he said again, "I am sorry--I am indeed!" "Sorry?" said Poole quietly. "Yes; for you've all been very kind to me." "Well, I am glad to hear you say so, for I tried to be, and the dad liked you because you were such a cocky, plucky little chap. But there: it's no use to cry over spilt milk. I suppose it isn't spilt yet, though," he added, with a little laugh; "but the jug will be cracked directly, and away it will all go into the sea. But I say, can you swim?" "Oh yes, I can swim. I learnt when I was a cadet." "That's right; and if we can't get off in one of the boats you keep close alongside of me--I know the dad will like me to stick with you-- and I'll get a life-belt, or one of the buoys, and we will share it together, one to rest in it while the other swims and tows. We'll get to shore somehow, never fear--the whole lot of us, I expect, for the lads will stand by, I am sure." "Yes, yes," said Fitz, glancing round over the sunlit sea. "But what about the sharks?" "Oh!" ejaculated Poole involuntarily, and he changed colour. It was just as the skipper and mate came walking sharply forward again. "There!" cried the latter triumphantly. "What did I say?" "Splendid!" cried the skipper. "But will it last?" "It did yesterday. Why not to-day?" cried the mate fiercely. For the wind had suddenly come in a sharp gust which filled the sails, making several of them snap with a loud report, laid the schooner on her beam-ends, and sent her rushing through the water for some hundred yards, making it come foaming up through the scuppers in fountains, to flood the deck, before she was eased off by the man at the wheel and rose again. But directly after the calm asserted itself once more; the greater part of the sea was like a mirror, with only cat's-paws here and there; and the gunboat came pounding on as stern as fate. "All right," said the mate cheerily; "it's coming again," and he ran to the man at the wheel. "Stand by, my lads," cried the skipper, "ready to let go those stuns'ls. We mustn't be taken again like that." The men rushed to the sheets, and when the wind came again, it came to stay, striking the heavily-canvassed schooner a tremendous blow, to which she only careened over, and not a drop of water came on board, for the light studding-sails were let go to begin flapping and snapping like whip-thongs until the violence of the gust had passed; and by that time the men were busy reducing the canvas, and the schooner was flying through the water like the winning yacht in a race. "Never say die!" cried Poole, with a laugh. "We are going faster than the gunboat now." "Yes," replied Fitz thoughtfully; "but she has the command of the sea, and can cut us off." "As long as her coals last," said Poole, "and they're burning them pretty fast over this. I'd give something to guess what old Burgess means to do. He's got something in his head that I don't believe my father knows." "Oh, he'd be sure to know," said Fitz, whose hopes were rising fast, his sympathies being entirely now with those who had proved such friends. "Oh, no, he wouldn't. Old Burgess can be as mute as a fish when he likes, and there's nothing pleases him better than taking people by surprise." "But what can he do more than race right away?" "Well, I'll tell you, Burnett, old chap. It's no use for him to think of racing right away. What he'll do is this. I have said something of the kind to you before. He knows this coast just like his ABC, the bays and rivers and backwaters and crannies all amongst the rocks. He's spent days and days out in a boat sounding and making rough charts; and what he'll do, I feel certain, is this--make for some passage in amongst the rocks where he can take the little _Teal_, run right in where the gunboat dare not come, and stay there till she's tired out." "But then they'll sink us with their gun." "Oh no; he'll get her right into shelter where she can't be seen." "Then the gunboat captain will send after us with his armed boats and board us where we lie." "Let him," said Poole grimly. "That's just what old Burgess and all the lads would like. Mr Don what's-his-name and his men would find they had such a hedgehog to tackle that they'd soon go back again faster than they came." "Do you think your father would do that?" said Fitz, after a glance aft, to note that they were leaving the gunboat steadily behind. "Why, of course," cried Poole. "But it's resisting a man-of-war." "Well, what of that? We didn't boggle about doing it with one of the Queen's ships, so you don't suppose that dad would make much bones about refusing to strike to a mongrel Spaniard like that?" Fitz was silent, and somehow then in a whirl of exciting thoughts it did not seem so very serious a thing, but brought up passages he had read in old naval books of cutting-out expeditions and brave fightings against heavy odds. And then as they went flying through the water the exhilaration of the chase took up all his attention, and the conversation dropped out of his mental sight, for it lasted hours, and during all that time the _Teal_ skimmed along, following out her old tactics close to a lovely surf-beaten shore, passing bluff and valley openings where there were evidently streams pouring out from the mountains to discolour the silver sea, and offering, as the middy thought, endless havens of refuge, till about the hottest part of the day, when the pitch seemed to be seething in the seams. All at once the captain, after a short conversation with his mate, went forward with a couple of men, and Burgess went himself to take the wheel. "Now then," said Poole, "what did I tell you?" "Do you think we are going to turn in here?" "That's just what I do think. Here, do you want a job?" "Yes--no--of course--What do you want me to do?" "Go and tell the Camel to get the oiliest breakfast he can all ready, for we are half-starved." "Don't talk nonsense!" cried Fitz angrily. "What do you mean?" "Mean? Why, look! Old Grumbo's running us right in for the line of surf below that bluff. There's an opening there, I'll be bound. Look at the coloured water too. There must be a good-sized river coming down from somewhere. Oh, the old fox! He knows what he's about. There's one of his holes in there, and the hunt is nearly up. I mean, the little _Teal_ is going in to find her nest." "Well, I hope you are right," said Fitz quietly; and then he stood watching while the little schooner seemed as if being steered to certain destruction, but only to glide by the threatened danger into a wide opening hidden heretofore, and where the rocks ran up, jungle-covered, forming the sides of a lovely valley whose limits were hidden from the deck. At that moment the middy became aware of the fact that one of the men was busy with the skipper heaving the lead and shouting the soundings loud enough for the mate to hear, while with educated ear Fitz listened and grasped the fact how dangerously the water shoaled, till it seemed at last that the next minute they must run aground. For a few minutes it was as though something was clutching at the boy's throat, making his breath come hot and fast; and he glanced back to see where the gunboat was, but looked in vain, for a side of the valley rose like a towering wall between, and on glancing in the other direction there was another stupendous wall running up to mountain height, and all of gorgeous greens. The next minute, when he looked forward, feeling that at any moment he might have to swim, the voice of the man with the lead-line seemed to ring out louder and more clear, announcing fathoms, as a short time before he had shouted feet. There was a curious stillness too reigning around. The roar of surf upon the rocky shore was gone; the wind had dropped; and the _Teal_ was gliding slowly up the grand natural sanctuary into which she had been steered, while the lad awakened to the fact that they had entered a rushing stream, and as the feeling gained ground of all this being unreal, their safety being, as it were, a dream, he was brought back to the bare matter-of-fact by hearing an order given, the anchor descending with a splash, and Poole bringing his hand down sharply upon his shoulder, to cry exultantly-- "There, old chap; what did I say!" _ |
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