The Project Gutenberg eBook of In Clive's Command, by Herbert Strang

"Oho! we says goodby,
But never pipes our eye,
Tho' we leaves Sue, Poll, and Kitty all behind us;
And if we drops our bones
Down along o' Davy Jones,
Why, they'll come and axe the mermaids for to find us."

"Ay, an' a friend was helpin' him, an' here's a dozen of us a-helpin' of one supercargo."

"Ay, General Clive, him what chased the mounseers out o' Fort St. George with a marlinspike. I didn't know him at fust, comin' up behind t'other chap; but when I seed that purple coat with the gold lace and the face of him above it I knowed him. In course there was no more fight for us then; 'twas hip-hip hurray and up with our hangers. Clive, he smiled and touched his hat. 'Bulger,' says he, 'you en't much fatter--'"

"Know me! In course he does. Wasn't I bo'sun's mate on board the Indiaman as took him east twelve year ago or more? That was afore I got this here button hook o' mine. Ay, I remember him well, a-trampin' up an' down deck with his hands in his pockets an' his mouth set tight an' his chin on his stock, never speakin' to a soul, in the doldrums if ever a lad was. Why, we all thought there was no more spirit in him than in the old wooden figurehead--leastways, all but me.

"'I may be wrong,' says I to old Tinsley the bo'sun, 'I may be wrong,' says I, 'but I be main sure that young sad down-in-the-mouth have got a blazin' fire somewhere in his innards.'

"Ay, and time showed it. There was a lot of cadets aboard as poked fun at the quiet chap an' talked him over, a-winkin' their eyes. From talkin' it got to doin'. One day, goin' to his bunk, he found it all topsyversy, hair powder on his pillow, dubbin in his shavin' cup, salt pork wropt up in his dressin' gown. Well, I seed him as he comed on deck, an' his face were a sight to remember, pale as death, but his eyes a-blazin' like live coals in the galley fire. Up he steps to the cadet as was ringleader; how he knowed it I can't tell you, but he was sure of it, same as I always am.

"Cook happened to be passin' with a tray; a lady what was squeamish had been having her vittles on deck. Mr. Clive cotched up a basin o' pea soup what was too greasy for madam, and in a twink he sets it upside down on the cadet's head. Ay, 'twas a pretty pictur', the greasy yellow stuff runnin' down over his powdered hair an' lace collar an' fine blue coat. My eye! there was a rare old shindy, the cadet cursin' and splutterin', the others laughin' fit to bust 'emselves. The cadet out with his fists, but there, 'twas no manner o' use. Mr. Clive bowled him over like a ninepin till he lay along deck all pea soup an' gore. There was no more baitin' o' Mr. Clive that voyage.

"'Bo'sun,' says I, 'what did I tell you? I may be wrong, but that young Mr. Bob Clive'll be a handful for the factors in Fort St. George.'"

While this narrative had been in progress, Desmond was walking with Bulger and his mates back towards the river.

"How was it you happened to be hereabouts so early?" asked Desmond. "I didn't expect to see you till tomorrow."

"You wouldn't axe if you wasn't a landlubber, meanin' no offense," he said. "'Tis last night ashore. We sailor men has had enough o' Waterman's Rests an' such like. To tell you the truth, we gave Mr. Toley the slip, and now we be goin' to have a night at the Crown an' Anchor."

"We takes our chance. They won't press me, sartin sure, 'cos o' my tenterhook here, and I'll keep my weather eye open, trust me for that."

Here they parted company. Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus:

"Ho! when the cargo's shipped,
An the anchor's neatly tripped,
An' the gals are weepin' bucketfuls o' sorrer,
Why, there's the decks to swab,
An' we en't a-goin' to sob,
S'pose the sharks do make a meal of us tomorrer."

"Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish. Solitudo aliquid adjuvat, as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case, when solitude would have been my undoing. I thank thee."

"That to be sure was his intention. I was in truth in the very article of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical moment up comes a gallant youth--subvenisti homini jam perdito--and with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."

"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty passions and tetchy temper. By the merest accident, at a somewhat crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I apologized in the handsomest way, he must take offense and seek to cut off my life, to extinguish me in primo aevo, as Naso would say. But Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life unextinguished."

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draft from classical sources, was intended to quench the ardor of his curiosity. Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street. And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight occasion. But, after all, Diggle's quarrels were his own concern. That his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune, and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harbored a vague hope of falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity, with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him as a stranger.

Chapter 8: In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is discovered in the Doldrums.

The Good Intent lay becalmed in the doldrums. There was not wind enough to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of her. The air was sweltering, the sky the color of burnished copper, out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams. Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.

For three weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring as it were out of the fissures in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.

The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those days. The crew, lounging about half naked on the decks, seeking what shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no spirit to do anything, quarreled among themselves, growling at the unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each other's throats.

The Good Intent was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly four hundred tons, large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached five hundred tons. When her keel was laid for the Honorable East India Company some twenty years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a score of voyages to the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks of worms and dry rot, had told upon her timbers. She had been sold off and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the class known as "interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly. She was now filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives, glass, hubblebubbles, cochineal, sword blades, toys, coarse cloth, woolen goods--anything that would find a market among the European merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India. There was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he asked no questions he would be told no lies.

On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt and breeches, were lolling, lying crouching on the deck forward, circled around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the flying fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag stuffing, with feathers pricked in to counterfeit spiked fins.

As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened, laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck and arms were bare, and the color of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the rest, he had no tattoo marks pricked into his skin. His breeches were tatters, his striped shirt covered with party-colored darns.

"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my last voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves from Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms nowhere; and contrariwise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock an' round shot for one or the other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em comin' from all p'ints o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there when there's a go of grog to be sarved out. We was all like the livin' skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they pattered like hailstones on the deck."

"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a thick set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted, his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.

"With glue made out of albacores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight hells one arternoon, the lookout at the masthead--"

"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys, notwithstandin's and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter pint o' water and a biscuit or two every day by a halyard.

"Well, as I was sayin', all at once the lookout calls out, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit.

"And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which it might be a quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot for three weeks. How did that island come there so sudden like? In course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was a-lookin' at it we saw it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure and steady. Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh today! 'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous squid!'

"And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby Marshes, and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin' straight for us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"

The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open mouthed, when a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and dispersing the group.

"Here you, Burke, you, up aloft and pay the topmost with grease. I'll have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!"

"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle, bringing this useless lubber aboard."

"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"

Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He had long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him on board the Good Intent an hour before sailing. He left him to himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his endeavors, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.

"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connections, to assist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful career."

"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from the vernacular--on your legs."

"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped, supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to go to India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as Seneca, I think, puts it. No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus--"

Desmond did not await the end of Diggle's peroration. It was then too late to repine. The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though he was more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on false pretenses, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and hoped that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had anticipated.

But even before the Good Intent made the Channel he was woefully undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes. Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.

"Humph!" he said when Desmond was presented to him. "You're him, are you? Well, let me tell you this, my lad: the ship's boy on board this 'ere ship have got to do what he's bid, and no mistake about it. If he don't, I'll make him. Now, you go for'ard into the galley and scrape the slush off the cook's pans; quick's the word."

From that day Desmond led a dog's life. He found that as ship's boy he was at the beck and call of the whole company. The officers, with the exception of Mr. Toley, the melancholy first mate, took their cue from the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never took his part openly. The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was socially above them. The majority of the seamen were even more ruffianly than the specimens he had seen at the Waterman's Rest--the scum of Wapping and Rotherhithe. His only real friend on board was Bulger, who helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work, and often protected him against the ill treatment of his mates; and, in spite of his one arm, Bulger was a power to be reckoned with.

At the best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it at first almost intolerable. Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable hammock, wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and over exertion told upon his frame. From the moment when all hands were piped to lash hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for turning in, it was one long round of thankless drudgery. But he proved himself to be very quick and nimble. Before long, no one could lash his hammock with the seven turns in a shorter time than he. After learning the work on the mainsails and trysails he was sent to practise the more acrobatic duties in the tops, and when two months had passed, no one excelled him in quickness aloft.

If his work had been confined to the ordinary seaman's duties he would have been fairly content, for there is always a certain pleasure in accomplishment, and the consciousness of growing skill and power was some compensation for the hardships he had to undergo. But he had to do dirty work for the cook, clean out the styes of the captain's pigs, swab the lower deck, sometimes descend on errands for one or other to the nauseous hold.

Perhaps the badness of the food was the worst evil to a boy accustomed to plain but good country fare. The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's dirty pans. The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became distasteful; it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and before long it became putrid. The strong cheese for supper was even more horrible. He lived for the most part on the tough sea biscuit of mixed wheat and pea flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled with fat, which did duty as pudding. For drink he had nothing but small beer; the water in the wooden casks was full of green, grassy, slimy things. But the fresh sea air seemed to be a food itself; and though Desmond became lean and hollow cheeked, his muscles developed and hardened. Little deserving Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he became handy in many ways on board, and proved to be the possessor of a remarkably keen pair of eyes.

When, in obedience to the captain's orders, he was greasing the mast, his attention was caught by three or four specks on the horizon.

The officer at once mounted the shrouds and took a long look at the specks Desmond pointed out, while the crew below crowded to the bulwarks and eagerly strained their eyes in the same direction.

"Three or four sail, sir, sure enough. They are hull down; there's not a doubt but they're bringing the wind with 'em."

In a couple of hours the strangers had become distinctly visible, and the first faint puffs of the approaching breeze caused the sails to flap lazily against the yards. Then the canvas filled out, and at last, after nearly a fortnight's delay, the Good Intent began to slip through the water at three or four knots.

The wind freshened during the night, and next morning the Good Intent was bowling along under single-reefed topsails. The ships sighted the night before had disappeared, to the evident relief of Captain Barker. Whether they were Company's vessels or privateers he had no wish to come to close quarters with them.

After breakfast, when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor's work, the rest of the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves. Some slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended their clothes.

It happened one day that Desmond, sitting in the forecastle among the men of his mess, was occupied in darning a pair of breeches for Parmiter. It was the one thing he could not do satisfactorily; and one of the men, after quizzically observing his well meant but ludicrous attempts, at last caught up the garment and held it aloft, calling his mates' attention to it with a shout of laughter.

Parmiter chanced to be coming along at the moment. Hearing the laugh, and seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at Desmond, and knocked him down.

"What do you mean, you clumsy young lubber, you," he cried, "by treating my smalls like that? I'll brain you, sure as my name's Parmiter!"

Desmond had already suffered not a little at Parmiter's hands. His endurance was at an end. Springing up with flaming cheeks he leaped towards the bully, and putting in practice the methods he had learned in many a hard-fought mill at Mr. Burslem's school, he began to punish the offender. His muscles were in good condition; Parmiter was too much addicted to grog to make a steady pugilist; and though he was naturally much the stronger man, he was totally unable to cope with his agile antagonist.

A few rounds settled the matter; Parmiter had to confess that he had had enough, and Desmond, flinging his breeches to him, sat down tingling among his mates, who greeted the close of the fight with spontaneous and unrestrained applause.

Next day Parmiter was in the foretop splicing the forestay. Desmond was walking along the deck when suddenly he felt his arm clutched from behind, and he was pulled aside so violently by Bulger's hook that he stumbled and fell at full length. At the same moment something struck the deck with a heavy thud.

Looking in the direction Bulger pointed, he saw that the foretopsail sheet block had fallen on deck, within an inch of where he would have been but for the intervention of Bulger's hook. Glancing aloft, he saw Parmiter grinning down at him.

Desmond was on the point of refusing; the man, he thought, might at least have apologized: but reflecting that a refusal would entail a complaint to the captain, and a subsequent flogging, he bit his lips, fastened the block, and went on his way.

"'Tis my belief 'twas no accident," said Bulger afterwards. "I may be wrong, but Parmiter bears a grudge against you. And he and that there Mr. Diggle is too thick by half. I never could make out why Diggle diddled you about that supercargo business; he don't mean you no kindness, you may be sure; and when you see two villains like him and Parmiter puttin' their heads together, look out for squalls, that's what I say."

"Why are you so suspicious of Mr. Diggle?" he said. "He has not kept his promise, that's true, and I am sorry enough I ever listened to him. But that doesn't prove him to be an out-and-out villain. I've noticed that you keep out of his way. Do you know anything of him? Speak out plainly, man."

He settled himself against the mast, gave a final polish to his hook with holystone, and using the hook every now and then to punctuate his narrative, began.

"Let me see, 'twas a matter o' three years ago. I was bo'sun on the Swallow, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to Calcutta. There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an' square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon to the Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what should I do but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the Swallow was in a manner of speakin' on the wing. Not but what it sarved me right, for what business had I at my time of life to be wastin' shore leave by poppin' at little dicky birds in the dirty slimy jheels, as they call 'em, round about Calcutta!

"Well, I was put ashore, as was on'y natural, and 'twas a marvel I pulled through--for it en't many as take the cramp in Bengal and live to tell it. The Company, I'll say that for 'em, was very kind; I had the best o' nussin' and vittles; but when I found my legs again there I was, as one might say, high and dry, for there was no Company's ship ready to sail. So I got leave to sign on a country ship, bound for Canton; and we dropped down the Hugli with enough opium on board to buy up the lord mayor and a baker's dozen of aldermen.

"Nearly half a mile astern was three small country ships, such as might creep round the coast to Chittagong, dodgin' the pirates o' the Sandarbands if they was lucky, and gettin' their weazands slit if they wasn't. They drew less water than us, and was generally handier in the river, which is uncommon full of shoals and sandbanks; but for all that I remember they was still maybe half a mile astern when we dropped anchor--anchors, I should say--for the night, some way below Diamond Harbor. But to us white men the way o' these Moors is always a bag o' mystery, and as seamen they en't anyway of much account. Well, it might be about seven bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a most tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo. We tumbles up mighty sharp, and well we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board with us, and another foulin' our hawser. Their grapnels came whizzin' aboard; but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped downstream. That gave us a chance to be ready for the other. She got a grip of us and held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But pistols and pikes had been sarved out, and when they came bundlin' over into the foc'sle, we bundled 'em back into the Hugli, and you may be sure they wasn't exactly seaworthy when they got there. They was a mixed lot; that we soon found out by their manner o' swearin' as they slipped by the board, for although there was Moors among 'em, most of 'em was Frenchies or Dutchmen, and considerin' they wasn't Englishmen they made a good fight of it. But over they went, until only a few was left; and we was just about to finish 'em off, when another country ship dropped alongside, and before we knew where we was a score of yellin' ruffians was into the waist and rushin' us in the stern sheets, as you might say. We had to fight then, by thunder! we did.

"The odds was against us now, and we was catchin' it from two sides. But our blood was up, and we knew what to expect if they beat us. 'Twas the Hugli for every man Jack of us, and no mistake. There was no orders, every man for himself, with just enough room and no more to see the mounseers in front of him. Some of us--I was one of 'em--fixed the flints of the pirates for'ard, while the rest faced round and kept the others off. Then we went at 'em, and as they couldn't all get at us at the same time, owing to the deck being narrow, the odds was not so bad arter all. 'Twas now hand to hand, fist to fist, one for you and one for me; you found a Frenchman and stuck to him till you finished him off, or he finished you, as the case might be, in a manner of speakin'. Well, I found one lanky chap--he was number four that night--and all in ten minutes, as it were, I jabbed a pike at him, and missed, for it was hard to keep footin' on the wet deck, though the wet was not Hugli water; thick as it is, this was thicker--and he fired a pistol at me by way of thank you. I saw his figurehead in the flash, and I shan't forget it either, for he left me this to remember him by, though I didn't know it at the time."

Here Bulger held up the iron hook that did duty for his left forearm. Then glancing cautiously around, he added in a whisper:

"'Twas Diggle--or I'm a Dutchman. That was my fust meetin' with him. Of course, I'm in a way helpless now, being on the ship's books, and he in a manner of speakin' an orficer; but one of these days there'll be a reckonin', or my name en't Bulger."

The boatswain brought down his fist with a resounding whack on the scuttle butt, threatening to stave in the top of the barrel.

"We drove 'em back bit by bit, and fairly wore 'em down. They weren't all sailormen, or we couldn't have done it, for they had the numbers; but an Englishman on his own ship is worth any two furriners--aye, half a dozen some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself--and at the last some of them turned tail and bolted back. The ship's boy, what was in the shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray! hooray!' That was all we wanted. We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in such a slap-bang go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there wasn't a Frenchman, a Dutchman, nor a Moor on board. They cut the grapnels and floated clear, and next mornin' we saw 'em on their beam ends on a sandbank a mile down the river. That's how I fust come across Mr. Diggle; I may be wrong, but I says it again: look out for squalls."

For some days the wind held fair, and the ship being now in the main track of the trades, all promised well for a quick run to the Cape. But suddenly there was a change; a squall struck the vessel from the southwest. Captain Barker, catching sight of Desmond and a seaman near at hand, shouted:

"Furl the top-gallant sail, you two. Now show a leg, or, by thunder, the masts will go by the board."

Springing up the shrouds on the weather side, Desmond was quickest aloft. He crawled out on the yard, the wind threatening every moment to tear him from his dizzy, rocking perch, and began with desperate energy to furl the straining canvas. It was hard work, and but for the development of his muscles during the past few months, and a naturally cool head, the task would have been beyond his powers. But setting his teeth and exerting his utmost strength, he accomplished his share of it as quickly as the able seaman on the lee yard.

The sail was half furled when all at once the mast swung through a huge arc; the canvas came with tremendous force against the cross trees, and Desmond, flung violently outwards, found himself swinging in midair, clinging desperately to the leech of the sail. With a convulsive movement he grasped at a loose gasket above him, and catching a grip, wound it twice or thrice round his arm. The strain was intense; the gasket was thin and cut deeply into the flesh; he knew that should it give way nothing could save him. So he hung, the wind howling around him, the yards rattling, the boisterous sea below heaving as if to clutch him and drag him to destruction.

A few seconds passed, every one of which seemed an eternity. Then through the noise he heard shouts on deck. The vessel suddenly swung over, and Desmond's body inclined towards instead of from the mast. Shooting out his arm he caught at the yard, seized it, and held on, though it seemed that his arm must be wrenched from the socket. In a few moments he succeeded in clambering on to the yard, where he clung, endeavoring to regain his breath and his senses.

Then he completed his job, and with a sense of unutterable relief slid down to the deck. A strange sight met his eyes. Bulger and Parmiter were lying side by side; there was blood on the deck; and Captain Barker stood over them with a marlinspike, his eyes blazing, his face distorted with passion. In consternation Desmond slipped out of the way, and asked the first man he met for an explanation.

It appeared that Parmiter, who was at the wheel when the squall struck the ship, had put her in stays before the sail was furled, with the result that she heeled over and Desmond had narrowly escaped being flung into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight, Bulger had sprung forward, and, knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack, thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had been able to seize. The captain had been incensed to a blind fury, first with Parmiter for acting without orders and then with Bulger for interfering with the man at the wheel. In a paroxysm of madness he attacked both men with a spike; the ship was left without a helmsman, and nothing but the promptitude of the melancholy mate, who had rushed forward and taken the abandoned wheel himself, had saved the vessel from the imminent risk of carrying away her masts.

Later in the day, when the squall and the captain's rage had subsided, the incident was talked over by a knot of seamen in the forecastle.

"You may say what you like," said one, "but I hold to it that Parmiter meant to knock young Burke into the sea. For why else did he put the ship in stays? He en't a fool, en't Parmiter."

"Ay," said another, "and arter that there business with the block, eh? One and one make two; that's twice the youngster has nigh gone to Davy Jones through Parmiter, and it en't in reason that sich-like things should allers happen to the same party."

"But what's the reason?" asked a third. "What call has Parmiter to have such a desperate spite against Burke? He got a lickin', in course, but what's a lickin' to a Englishman? Rot it all, the youngster en't a bad matey. He've led a dog's life, that he have, and I've never heard a grumble, nary one; have you?"

"True," said the first. "And I tell you what it is. I believe Bulger's in the right of it, and 'tis all along o' that there Diggle, hang him! He's too perlite by half, with his smile and his fine lingo and all. And what's he keep his hand wropt up in that there velvet mitten thing for? I'd like to know that. There's summat mortal queer about Diggle, mark my words, and we'll find it out if we live long enough."

"Course it was; that's what proves it, don't you see? He stuffs him up as he's to be supercargo; call that number one. He brings him aboard and makes him ship boy; that's number two. He looks us all up and down with those rat's eyes of his, and thinks we're a pretty ugly lot, and Parmiter the ugliest, how's that for number three? Then he makes hissel sweet to Parmiter; I've seed him more'n once; that's number four. Then there's that there block: five; and today's hanky panky: six; and it wants one more to make seven, and that's the perfect number, I've heard tell, 'cos o' the Seven Champions o' Christendom."

"I guess you've reasoned that out mighty well," drawled the melancholy voice of Mr. Toley, who had come up unseen and heard the last speech. "Well, I'll give you number seven."

"No, he en't. Number seven is, be kind o' tender with young Burke. Count them words. He's had enough kicks. That's all."

Chapter 9: In which the Good Intent makes a running fight: Mr. Toley makes a suggestion.

Making good sailing, the Good Intent reached Saldanhas Bay, where she put in for a few necessary repairs, then safely rounded the Cape, and after a short stay at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, taking in fresh provisions there, set sail for the Malabar coast. The wind blew steadily from the southwest, and she ran merrily before it.

During this part of the voyage Desmond found his position somewhat improved. His pluck had won the rough admiration of the men; Captain Barker was not so constantly chevying him; and Mr. Toley showed a more active interest in him, teaching him the use of the sextant and quadrant, how to take the altitude of the sun, and many other matters important in navigation.

It was the third week of April, and the monsoon having begun, Captain Barker expected before long to sight the Indian coast. One morning, about two bells, the lookout reported a small vessel on the larboard bow, laboring heavily. The captain took a long look at it through his perspective glass, and made out that it was a two-masted grab; the mainmast was gone.

"Odds bobs," he said to Mr. Toley, "'tis strange to meet a grab so far out at sea. We'll run down to it."

"What is a grab?" asked Desmond of Bulger, when the news had circulated through the ship's company.

"Why, that's a grab, sure enough. I en't a good hand at pictur' paintin'; we're runnin' square for the critter, and then you'll see for yourself. This I'll say, that you don't see 'em anywheres in partickler but off the Malabar coast."

Desmond was soon able to take stock of the vessel. It was broad in proportion to its length, narrowing from the middle to the end, and having a projecting prow like the old-fashioned galleys of which he had seen pictures. The prow was covered with a deck, level with the main deck of the vessel, but with a bulkhead between this and the forecastle.

"En't she pitchin'!" remarked Bulger, standing by Desmond's side. "You couldn't expect nothing else of a craft built that shape. Look at the water pourin' off her; why, I may be wrong, but I'll lay my best breeches she's a-founderin'."

As usual, Bulger was right. When the grab was overhauled, the men on board, dark-skinned Marathas with very scanty clothing, made signs that they were in distress.

Mr. Toley at the wheel put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, and with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grab were taken off. As they came aboard the Good Intent, Diggle, who was leaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, and moved towards the taffrail. One of the newcomers, a fine muscular fellow, seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then salaamed. The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and grasped his hand with the familiarity of old friendship.

"Yes, truly. The Gentoos and I are in a sense comrades in arms. His name is Hybati; he's a Maratha."

"He says, captain," returned Diggle, with a smile, "that he hopes you will send and fetch the crew's rice on board. They won't eat our food--afraid of losing caste."

"I'll be hang if I launch the longboat again. The grab won't live another five minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew against a hundred of these dirty Moors."

"Well, let 'em starve. I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship. Beggars mustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest English vittles they don't deserve to eat at all."

Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left to their fate. Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart, and, amid cries from the Marathas she keeled over and sank.

When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how he came to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he had been in command of Angria's fortress of Suwarndrug, which was so strong that he had believed it able to withstand any attacks. But one day a number of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared between the mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated, and had begun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins. The chief damage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men had made the best defense they could, but the gunners were shot down by musket fire from the round tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire to a thatched house within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed to attempt to extinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine blew up, and the inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers, fled to the shore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats. Hybati had kept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive succor; but under cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore landed half his seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and cutting down the sally port with their axes forced their way in.

Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and was lucky in pushing off in the grab, unobserved by the enemy. The winds, however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along the coast and then driven far out to sea. With the breaking of the monsoon a violent squall had dismasted the grab and shattered her bulkhead; she was continually shipping water, and, as the sahib saw, was at the point of sinking when the English ship came up.

Such was the Maratha's story, as by and by it became common property on board the Good Intent. Of all the crew Desmond was perhaps the most interested. To the others there was nothing novel in the sight of the Indians; but to him they stood for romance, the embodiment of all the tales he had heard and all the dreams he had dreamed of this wonderful country in the East. He was now assured that he was actually within reach of his desired haven; and he hoped shortly to see an end of the disappointments and hardships, the toils and distresses, of the past seven months.

He was eager to learn more of these Marathas, and their fortress, and the circumstances of the recent fight. Bulger was willing to tell all he knew; but his information was not very exact, and Desmond did not hear the full story till long after.

The Malabar coast had long been the haunt of Maratha pirates, who interfered greatly with the native trade between India and Arabia and Persia. In defense of the interests of his Mohammedan subjects the Mogul emperor at length, in the early part of the eighteenth century, fitted out a fleet, under the command of an admiral known as the Sidi. But there happened to be among the Marathas at that time a warrior of great daring and resource, one Kunaji Angria. This man first defeated the Sidi, then, in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own sovereign, and set up as an independent ruler.

By means of a well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himself master of place after place along the coast, including the Maratha fortress at Suwarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria. His successors, who adopted in turn the dynastic name of Angria, followed up Kunaji's conquest, until by the year 1750 the ruling Angria was in possession of a strip of territory on the mainland a hundred and eighty miles long and about forty broad, together with many small adjacent islands.

For the defense of this little piratical state Angria's Marathas constructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions and displaying no small measure of engineering skill. From these strongholds they made depredations by sea and land, not only upon their native neighbors, but also upon the European traders, English, Dutch, and Portuguese; swooping down on unprotected merchant vessels and even presuming to attack warships. Several expeditions had been directed against them, but always in vain; and when in 1754 the chief of that date, Tulaji Angria, known to Europeans as the Pirate, burnt two large Dutch vessels of fifty and thirty-six guns respectively, and captured a smaller one of eighteen guns, he boasted in his elation that he would soon be master of the Indian seas.

But a term was about to be put to his insolence and his depredations. On March twenty-second, 1755, Commodore William James, commander of the East India Company's marine force, set sail from Bombay in the Protector of forty-four guns, with the Swallow of sixteen guns, and two bomb vessels. With the assistance of a Maratha fleet he had attacked the island fortress of Suwarndrug, and captured it, as Hybati had related. A few days afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island of Bancoote, six miles north of Suwarndrug, surrendered. The Maratha rajah, Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified places which had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered the English commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others of Angria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was recalled to Bombay.

The spot at which the Good Intent had fallen in with the sinking grab was about eighty miles from the Indian coast, and Captain Barker expected to sight land next day. No one was more delighted at the prospect than Desmond. Leaving out of account the miseries of the long voyage, he felt that now he was within reach of the goal of his hopes. The future was all uncertain; he was no longer inclined to trust his fortunes to Diggle, for though he could not believe that the man had deliberately practised against his life, he had with good reason lost confidence in him, and what he had learned from Bulger threw a new light on his past career.

One thing puzzled him. If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotected ships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why was Captain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy? In her palmy days as an East Indiaman the Good Intent had carried a dozen nine-pounders on her upper deck and six on the quarterdeck; and Bulger had said that under a stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat half a dozen three-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate stronghold at Gheria. But now she had only half a dozen guns all told, and even had she possessed the full armament there were not men enough to work them, for her complement of forty men was only half what it had been when she sailed under the Company's flag.

"Why, bless 'ee, we en't a-goin' to run into no danger. Trust Cap'n Barker for that. You en't supercargo, to be sure; but who do you think them guns and round shots in the hold be for? Why, the Pirate himself. And he'll pay a good price for 'em, too."

"Do you mean to say that English merchants supply Angria with weapons to fight against their own countrymen?"

"Well, blest if you en't a innocent. In course they do. The guns en't always fust-class metal, to be sure; but what's the odds? The interlopers ha' got to live."

"Patriotic--a right way of thinking of one's own country. An Englishman isn't worth the name who helps England's enemies."

Bulger looked at him in amazement. The idea of patriotism was evidently new to him.

"I'll have to put that there notion in my pipe and smoke it," he said. "I'd fight any mounseer, or Dutchman, or Portuguee as soon as look at him, 'tis on'y natural; but if a mounseer likes to give me twopence for a thing that's worth a penny--why, I'll say thank 'ee and axe him--leastways if there's any matey by as knows the lingo--to buy another."

Shortly after dawn next morning the lookout reported four vessels to windward. From their appearance Captain Barker at once concluded that two were Company's ships, with an escort of a couple of grabs. As he was still scanning them he was joined by Diggle, with whom he entered into conversation.

"By thunder, no! But if we hold our present course we're bound to pass within hailing distance. Better put 'em off the scent."

He altered the vessel's course a point or two with the object of passing to windward of the strangers, as if steering for the Portuguese port of Goa.

A minute or two later a puff of smoke was observed to sally from the larger of the two grabs, followed in a few seconds by the boom of a gun.

"A call to us to heave to," said Bulger, in answer to Desmond's inquiry. "The unbelievin' critters thinks that Portuguee rag is all my eye."

But the Good Intent was by this time to windward of the vessels, and Captain Barker, standing on the quarterdeck, paid no heed to the signal. After a short interval another puff came from the deck of the grab, and a round shot plunged into the sea a cable's length from the Good Intent's bows, the grab at the same time hauling her wind and preparing to alter her course in pursuit. This movement was at once copied by the other three vessels, but being at least half a mile ahead of the grab that had fired, they were a long distance astern when the chase--for chase it was to be--began.

Captain Barker watched the grab with the eyes of a lynx. The Good Intent had run out of range while the grab was being put about; but the captain knew very well that the pursuer could sail much closer to the wind than his own vessel, and that his only chance was to beat off the leading boat before the others had time to come up.

It required very little at any time to put Captain Barker into a rage, and his demeanor was watched now with different feelings by different members of the crew. Diggle alone appeared unconcerned; he was smiling as he lolled against the mast.

"They'll fire at me, will they?" growled the captain with a curse. "And chase me, will they? By jimmy, they shall sink me before I surrender!"

"Argue it? I'll be hanged if I argue it! They're not king's ships to take it on 'emselves to stop me on the high seas! If the Company wants to prevent me from honest trading in these waters let 'em go to law, and be hanged to 'em! Talk of arguing! Lawyer's work. Humph!"

"You mistake, Barker. The Roman fellow whose words slipped out of my mouth almost unawares said nothing of arguing. 'Fear is the mark of only base minds': so it runs in English, captain; which is as much as to say that Captain Ben Barker is not the man to haul down his colors in a hurry."

"You're right there. Another shot! That's their argument: well, Ben Barker can talk that way as well as another."

He called up the boatswain. Shortly afterwards the order was piped, "Up all hammocks!" The men quickly stowed their bedding, secured it with lashings, and carried it to the appointed places on the quarterdeck, poop, or forecastle. Meanwhile the boatswain and his mates secured the yards; the ship's carpenter brought up shot plugs for repairing any breeches made under the waterline; and the gunners looked to the cannon and prepared charges for them and the small arms.

Bulger was in charge of the twelve-pounder aft, and Mr. Toley had tolled off Desmond to assist him. They stood side by side watching the progress of the grab, which gained steadily in spite of the plunging due to its curious build. Presently another shot came from her; it shattered the belfry on the forecastle of the Good Intent, and splashed into the sea a hundred yards ahead.

"They make good practice, for sartin," remarked Bulger. "I may be wrong, but I'll lay my life there be old man-o'-war's men aboard. I mind me when I was with Captain Golightly on the Minotaur--"

But Bulger's yarn was intercepted. At that moment the boatswain piped, "All hands to quarters!" In a surprisingly short time all timber was cleared away, the galley fire was extinguished, the yards slung, the deck strewn with wet sand, and sails, booms, and boats liberally drenched with water. The gun captains, each with his crew, cast loose the lashings of their weapons and struck open the ports. The tompions was taken out; the sponge, rammer, crows and handspikes placed in readiness, and all awaited eagerly the word for the action to begin.

"'Tis about time we opened our mouths at 'em," said Bulger. "The next bolus they send us as like as not will bring the spars a-rattlin' about our ears. To be sure it goes against my stummick to fire on old messmates; but it en't in Englishmen to hold their noses and swallow pills o' that there size. We'll load up all ready, mateys."

He stripped to the waist, and tied a handkerchief over his ears. Desmond and the men followed his example. Then one of them sponged the bore, another inserted the cartridge, containing three pounds of powder, by means of a long ladle, a third shoved in a wad of rope yarn. This having been driven home by the rammer, the round shot was inserted, and covered like the cartridge with a wad. Then Bulger took his priming iron, an instrument like a long thin corkscrew, and thrust it into the touch hole to clear the vent and make an incision in the cartridge. Removing the priming iron, he replaced it by the priming tube--a thin tapering tube with very narrow bore. Into this he poured a quantity of fine mealed powder; then he laid a train of the same powder in the little groove cut in the gun from the touch hole towards the breech. With the end of his powder horn he slightly bruised the train, and the gun only awaited a spark from the match.

Everything was done very quickly, and Desmond watched the seamen with admiration. He himself had charge of the linstock, about which was wound several matches, consisting of lengths of twisted cotton wick steeped in lye. They had already been lighted, for they burnt so slowly that they would last for several hours.

"Now, we're shipshape," said Bulger. "Mind you, Burke, don't come to far for'ard with your linstock. I don't want the train fired with no sparks afore I'm ready. And 'ware o' the breech; she'll kick like a jumping jackass when the shot flies out of her, an'll knock your teeth out afore you can say Jack Robinson--

He laid the gun, waited for the ship to rise from a roll, and then took one of the matches, gently blew its smoldering end, and applied the glowing wick to the bruised part of the priming. There was a flash, a roar, and before Desmond could see the effect of the shot Bulger had closed the vent, the gun was run in, and the sponger was at work cleaning the chamber.

As the black smoke cleared away it was apparent that the seaman had not forgotten his cunning. The shot had struck the grab on the deck of the prow and smashed into the forecastle. But the bow chasers were apparently uninjured, for they replied a few seconds later.

A shot had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the Good Intent, scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on the second mate and a seaman on the quarterdeck. A jagged end of the wood flying high struck Diggle on the left cheek. He wiped away the blood imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was not among his defects.

Captain Barker's ire was now at white heat. Shouting an order to Bulger and the next man to make rapid practice with the two stern chasers, he prepared to fall off and bring the Good Intent's broadside to bear on the enemy.

But the next shot was decisive. Diggle had quietly strolled down to the gun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain, in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the priming was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main, mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. The shot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails and rigging, went by the board.

"By thunder!" said Bulger to Desmond. "Diggle may be a rogue and a vagabond, but he knows how to train a gun."

Captain Barker signified his approval by a tremendous mouth-filling oath. But he was not yet safe. The second grab was following hard in the wake of the first; and it was plain that the two Indiamen were both somewhat faster than the Good Intent; for during the running fight that had just ended so disastrously for the grab, they had considerably lessened the gap between them and their quarry. Captain Barker watched them with an expression of fierce determination, but not without anxiety. If they should come within striking distance it was impossible to withstand successfully their heavier armament and larger crews. The firing had ceased: each vessel had crowded on all sail; and the brisk breeze must soon bring pursuer and pursued to a close engagement which could have only one result.

"I may be wrong, but seems to me we'd better say our prayers," Bulger remarked grimly to his gun crew.

It was true. Before the monsoon sets in in earnest it not unfrequently happens that the wind veers fitfully; a squall is succeeded almost instantaneously by a calm. So it was now. In less than an hour all five vessels were becalmed; and when night fell three miles separated the Good Intent from the second grab; the Indiamen lay a mile farther astern; and the damaged vessel was out of sight.

Captain Barker took counsel with his officers. He expected to be attacked during the night by the united boats of the pursuing fleet. Under cover of darkness they would be able to creep up close and board the vessel, and the captain knew well that if taken he would be treated as a pirate. His papers were made out for Philadelphia; he had hoisted Portuguese colors, but the enemy at close quarters could easily see that the Good Intent was British built; he had disabled one of the Company's vessels; there would be no mercy for him.

He saw no chance of beating off the enemy; they would outnumber him by at least five to one. Even if the wind sprang up again there was small likelihood of escape. One or other of the pursuing vessels would almost certainly overhaul him, and hold him until the others came up.

"Confound you!" said the captain with a burst of anger. "What could I expect with a gallows bird like you aboard? 'Tis enough to sink a vessel without shot."

"You are overwrought, captain," he said; "you are unstrung. 'Twould be ridiculous to take amiss words said in haste. In cold blood--well, you know me, Captain Barker. I will leave you to recover from your brief madness."

He went below. The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the other officers. Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simple reason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented his abuse, but went quietly his own way. He listened now for a quarter of an hour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured the vials of his wrath upon everything under the sun. When the captain had come to an end, and sunk into an estate of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toley said quietly:

"'Tis all you say, sir, and more. I guess I've never seen a harder case. But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of idea into my brain."

"Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o' what you was saying was just this. How would it be to take soundings?"

"So, that's your notion, is it? Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of 'em? You're always taking soundings! What in the name of thunder do you want to take soundings for?"

"Nothing particular, cap'n. That was the kind o' notion that come of what you was saying. Of course it depends on the depths hereabouts."

"Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that's like to come of 'em. Darned if I ain't got the most lubberly company ever mortal man was plagued with. Officers and men, there en't one of you as is worth your salt, and you with your long face and your notions--why, hang me, you're no more good than the dirtiest waister afloat."

Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder. After the captain's outburst none of the group dared to utter a word. This pleased him no better; he cursed them all for standing mum; and spent ten minutes in reviling them in turn. Then his passion appeared to have burnt itself out. Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said roughly:

Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave the deep-sea lead. The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and weighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of the vessel's drift.

"By the mark sixty, less five," sang out the man when the lead touched the bottom.

"Well, what about your notion?" said the captain scornfully. But he listened quietly and with an intent look upon his weatherbeaten face as Mr. Toley explained.

"You see, sir," he said, "while you was talking just now, I sort o' saw that if they attack us, 'twon't be for at least two hours after dark. The boats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won't hurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength left to 'em. Well, they'll take our bearings, of course. Thinks I, owing to what you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so? The boats 'ud miss us in the darkness."

"Well, sir, 'tis there my idea of taking soundings comes in. The Good Intent can't be towed, not with our handful of men; but why shouldn't she be kedged? That's the notion, sir; and I guess you'll think it over."

"By jimmy, Toley, you en't come out o' Salem, Massachusetts, for nothing. 'Tis a notion, a rare one; Ben Barker en't the man to bear a grudge, and I take back them words o' mine--leastways some on 'em.

The longboat was lowered, out of sight of the enemy. A kedge anchor, fastened to a stout hawser, was put on board, and as soon as it was sufficiently dark to make so comparatively small an object as a boat invisible to the hostile craft, she put off at right angles to the Good Intent's previous course, the hawser attached to the kedge being paid out as the boat drew away. When it had gone about a fifth of a mile from the vessel the kedge was dropped, and a signal was given by hauling on the rope.

"Clap on, men!" cried Captain Barker. "Get a good purchase, and none of your singsong; avast all jabber."

The crew manned the windlass and began with a will to haul on the cable in dead silence. The vessel was slowly warped ahead. Meanwhile the longboat was returning; when she reached the side of the Good Intent, a second kedge was lowered into her, and again she put off, to drop the anchor two cables' length beyond the first, so that when the ship had tripped that, the second was ready to be hauled on.

When the Good Intent had been thus warped a mile from her position at nightfall, Captain Parker ordered the operation to be stopped. To avoid noise the boat was not hoisted in. No lights were shown, and the sky being somewhat overcast, the boat's crew found that the ship was invisible at the distance of a fourth of a cable's length.

"I may be wrong," said Bulger to Desmond, "but I don't believe kedgin' was ever done so far from harbor afore. I allers thought there was something in that long head of Mr. Toley, though, to be sure, there en't no call for him to pull a long face, too."

An hour passed after the loading had been stopped. All on board the Good Intent remained silent, speaking, if they spoke at all, in whispers. There had been no signs of the expected attack. Desmond was leaning on the gunwale, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the enemy. But his ears gave him the first intimation of their approach. He heard a faint creaking, as of oars in rowlocks, and stepped back to where Bulger was leaning against the mast.

The sound had already reached Captain Barker's ears. It was faint; doubtless the oars were muffled. The ship was rolling lazily; save for the creaking nothing was heard but the lapping of the ripples against the hull. So still was the night that the slightest sound must travel far, and the captain remarked in a whisper to Mr. Toley that he guessed the approaching boats to be at least six cables' lengths distant.

Officers and men listened intently. The creaking grew no louder; on the contrary, it gradually became fainter, and at last died away. There was a long silence, broken only by what sounded like a low hail some considerable distance away.

"They're musterin' the boats," said Bulger, with a chuckle. "I may be wrong, but I'll bet my breeches they find they've overshot the mark. Now they'll scatter and try to nose us out."

Another hour of anxious suspense slowly passed, and still nothing had happened. Then suddenly a blue light flashed for a few moments on the blackness of the sea, answered almost instantaneously by a rocket from another quarter. It was clear that the boats, having signaled that the search had failed, had been recalled by the rocket to the fleet.

"I guess we don't get our living by making mistakes--not in Salem, Massachusetts," returned the first mate with his sad smile.

Through the night the watch was kept with more than ordinary vigilance, but nothing occurred to give Captain Barker anxiety. With morning light the enemy could be seen far astern.