"Signal to 'em to lie to, if they don't want to go to hell," he said between his teeth, and "Four-Eyes" answered:
"Ay, ay, sorr"; then, as the signal came, "He sez uz he'll say us at blazes afore he bates a knot."
"Give it him for'ard then, and teach him," roared Black; and the shot that answered his command struck the quivering hull not twenty feet from the windlass, and you could see the splinters carried fifty feet in the air, while the shrieks of terror came over the sea to us, and were piercing then.
"What's he say now?" asked the Captain, cooler than even at the beginning of the work.
"Says as he'll make it warm for ye at New York, and if ye come aboard, it's on yer own head, an' ye swing fer it—he'll not stop till ye disable him."
"The thick-headed vermin," hissed Black; "give him another, amidships this time."
The second shot made us reel and shiver as she left us; but there was no hit, for we rolled much, and saw the shell burst on the far side of the liner. At this, and at the failure of a second attempt, the Captain lost patience, and gave the order—
"Full steam ahead, and clear the machine-guns."
It was almost superb, I admit now, and the excitement of it was then upon me, to feel our great ship quiver at the touch of the bell, and bound forward with waves of foam and spray running from her decks, and each plate on her straining as though the mighty force of the engines below would rend it from its fellows.
I had not before known the limit of her speed, or what she could do when driven as she then was; and the truth amazed me, while it filled me with a strange exultation. For we, who had dallied heretofore behind the other, sped beyond her as an express train passes the droning goods; and coming about, in a great circle, we descended upon her as a goshawk upon the quarry.
The machine-guns upon our decks were already cleared; the men were stripped, ready for the fray, as tigers for their food. Indeed, before I quite understood the purport of the manœuvre, we were passing the Bellonic at a distance of not more than fifty yards; and at that moment it seemed as if all the furies of hell were let loose upon our decks.
Screaming like wild beasts, the men turned the handles of the Maxim guns; the balls rained upon the defenceless liner as hail upon a sheepfold. I heard fierce curses and dull groans; I saw strong men reel and fall their length as death took them; the breeze bore to me the wailing of women and the sobs of children.
But we had done the foul work in the one passage, for the flag dropped at once upon the liner, and the signal was made to us to come aboard. We had gained a horrid triumph, if such you could call the murders, and it remained but to divide the spoil.
"Lower away the launch, you John!" cried Black, "and take every shilling you can lay hands on. You hear me?—and hang up that skipper for a thin-skinned fool."
"By thunder, I'm yours all along," replied "Roaring John "; and then he sang out, "Hands for the launch!"
"You'd better go as cox," said Osbart to me, "you'll be amused"; and suggested it to Black, who turned upon me a look almost of hate.
"Yes, he shall go," he cried; "if we swing, he shall swing, the preaching lubber! Let him get aboard, or I'll kick him there."
I had loathing at the thought of it, but might as well have put a pistol to my head there and then as to have refused. They bundled me into the launch, and I sat shivering at the prospect of the terrors on the deck; but they would not leave me when they came alongside, and "Roaring John" himself drove me up the ladder which was put out amidships. Seven of us at last stood on the bridge, and were face to face with the captain of the Bellonic, and four of his officers.
I have said that I feared the terrors of that deck, but the reality surpassed the conception.
It was a very babel of sounds, of groans, of weeping. The ship's surgeon himself seemed paralysed before the sight of the carnage around him. You looked along the length of the vessel, and it was as though you looked upon the scene of a bloody battle, for there were dead almost in heaps, and wounded screaming, and streams of blood, and fragments of wreckage as though the ship had been under fire for many hours. But above all this terror, I know of nothing which struck me with such fearful sorrow as the sight of a fair young English girl lying by the door of the great saloon, her arms extended, her nut-brown hair soaked in her own blood, while a man knelt over her, and you could see his tears falling upon her dead face, and his ravings were incoherent and almost those of a maniac. At the sight of us he jumped to his feet, and shrieked "Murderers!" so continuously that the echo of his cry rang in my ears that day and for many days.
Meanwhile another scene was passing on the bridge between the man John and the captain of the Bellonic.
"What do you want aboard of my ship?" cried the latter; and "Roaring John" answered him with a mocking leer:
"We've come aboard to hang you, to begin on!"
The men with the young officer cocked their revolvers at this, and I said in a mad frenzy which would not brook silence—
"You scoundrel, if you touch another soul here I'll shoot you myself!" for I had my revolver on me. "Do you make a business of killing children?" I cried again, and pointed to the dead body of the girl-child.
I don't know who was more surprised, the captain of the Bellonic, listening, or the man John.
"You cub," he cried; "if you talk to me I'll skin you alive!" But I said quickly—
"Gentlemen, these men want every shilling on this ship. Give it them now and save your lives, for you have no alternative. If you give the money up, you have my word that they won't touch you."
"If there's a God above," exclaimed the young captain, "they shall pay for this day's work with their lives. I hand my specie over under this protest; but don't deceive yourselves—half the war-ships in Europe shall follow you within a week."
He turned away, and presently the ruffians with me had lowered money to the value of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds into their launch. The third mate seemed then somewhat cowed by my interference, and though he went round the ship and cried "Bail up!" every time he met a passenger, he did not touch one of them. I remained on the bridge a silent spectator of it all; and when at last we put off again, and the launch was full of the jewels and the money, it seemed that I had passed through a hideous dream.
At the time, I shrank from the ruffians in the boat as from men who were savage fiends and a hundred times assassins; and their brutality of speech and threat fell upon ears that would not hear; nor did their pretence of doing me violence then and there move me one jot. I maintained a stubborn indifference, my pistol still in my hand, my teeth shut in the defiance of them, until we reached the great craft, and joined Black upon the gallery. There, the man John explained that I had stood between him and his purpose of hanging the skipper of the Bellonic; indeed, with such warmth and anger, that I thought my end had come upon the spot.
"You barking cub," said Black, more quietly than usual, but none the less to be feared for that, "what d'ye mean by interfering with my men and my orders?"
"To save you from yourself," I answered, looking him full in the face; "you've killed children on that ship, if that's news to you!"
He had a spy-glass in his hand, and he raised it as though to strike me; but I continued to look him full in the face, and he remained swaying his body slightly, his arm still above his head. Then, suddenly it dropped at his side, as though paralysed; and he turned away from me.
"Get to your kennel," said he; "and don't leave it till I fetch you."
I was glad to escape, if only for a few moments, from the danger of it; and I went to my cabin in the upper gallery, but not before the angry shouts of the men convinced me that Black had risked much on my behalf for the second time. Even when my own door was locked upon me, such cries as "You're afeared of him!" "Is he going to boss you, skipper!" and other jeers were audible to me; and the uproar lasted