“Jobson!” cried the master, addressing the carpenter, who had just spoken, “sound the well, and see if she’s made any water.”
Jobson performed his duty, and reported two feet of water in the hold.
“She’s made that, sir, though, since we began to carry on. She was as dry as a cork yesterday,” he observed.
“I did not expect less, though,” returned the master. “She must be strong not to let it in faster. We’ll sound again in another half hour.”
For the first two or three hours of the chase, it was difficult to determine whether the stranger gained on them or not: but, by the time five had passed away, she had clearly come up very much. Bowse looked at his topmasts and topsail-yards, and then at the lee-scuppers, and shook his head. He was meditating the possibility of shaking out another reef. He wished that he could divine some method to induce the stranger to set more sail; but this hope had failed, for as he was gaining on them without it, he was not likely to do so. The master watched him anxiously through his glass. He seemed to stand up well to his canvas, and there was but little chance of his carrying anything away. On coming to this conclusion, Bowse began to consider whether it would not be more prudent to shorten sail himself, so as to be in better condition to meet the enemy when he should come up – a result which he feared must, sooner or later, occur. Even should the weather moderate, the polacca brig would probably have a still greater advantage; but then again, his principle was to struggle to the last – never to yield to death or misfortune, while the faintest gasp remains – never to let hope expire – so he determined still to drive the ship through it. Again the well was sounded. The water had increased another half foot. The mate shook his head. Two more anxious hours passed away.
“How much has she gained on us now, Timmins?” answered Bowse, who had returned from snatching a hasty meal below.
“The best part of half a league at least, sir,” answered the mate. “If she comes up at this rate, she’ll be within hail before the first watch is over to-night. Now, sir, as the carpenter reports the water increasing fast, and to have to keep the men at the pumps, where they must go for a spell, will make them unfit to meet the enemy, I venture to advise that we take the strain off the ship at once. It’s clearly nothing else that makes her leak as she does, and we shall then meet that fellow by daylight, which I tell you honestly, Captain Bowse, I for one would rather do.”
Bowse listened to his mate’s opinion with respect, but he doubted much whether to act upon it.
“What you say has much reason in it,” he answered; “but send the hands to the pumps first, and we’ll judge how they can keep the water under. If, after they’ve cleared the ship, it gains upon half the watch, we’ll shorten sail; but if we can easily keep the leaks under, we’ll carry on to the last.”
The clank of the pumps was heard amid the roaring of the gale, and the loud dash of the water over the ship, as the crew performed that most detested portion of a seaman’s duty. The result was watched for with anxiety by the captain, for he saw that on it depended how soon they might be brought into action with the pirate. If he could still manage to keep ahead of him he might induce him to give up the chase; or he might fall in with a man-of-war, or some armed merchantman, in company with whom no pirate would dare to attack them. It did occur to him, that to ease the ship, he might keep her before the wind, and run for some port on the Italian coast; but there was a wide extent of sea to be crossed before he could reach it, and the pirate being probably just as fast off the wind as on it, would still overtake him; and though he might, as he trusted to do, beat him off, he would be so much further away from his port.
“Well, what does the carpenter report?” he asked, as the mate appeared, after the well had been sounded.
“We’ve gained a foot upon the leaks, sir; but it’s hard work to keep them under, and if I might advise – ”
“Please Heaven, we’ll carry on, then, on the ship!” exclaimed the master, interrupting him. “Let half a watch at a time work the pumps. Before long the weather may moderate.”
The day wore on, and the pursuer and the pursued held their course with little variation. The Zodiac tore her way through the water, and sea succeeding sea met her persevering bows, and either yielded her a passage or flew in deluges over her decks. Night came on, and the stranger was upward of two leagues astern. The mate had before miscalculated her distance; his anxiety to shorten sail had probably somewhat blinded him. If the scene on board the Zodiac appeared terrific during daylight, much more so was it when darkness added its own peculiar horrors. Still not a sheet nor a tack would the brave master start, and he resolved, if the gale did not further increase, to run through the night without shortening sail. He himself set an example of hardihood and resolution to his crew, for scarcely a moment did he quit his post during the day, or the dreary hours of the first watch. As the short twilight disappeared, the stranger grew less and less distinct, till her shadowy outline could alone be traced, and even that by degrees vanished from the view of all but the most keen-sighted, till at last she could nowhere be discerned. An anxious look out was kept for her; for though shrouded by the obscurity from their sight, every one on deck felt that she was where she had last been seen, if not nearer; and some even fancied they could see her looming, surrounded by a halo of unnatural light, through the darkness.
It was in the first hour of the morning-watch, and neither Bowse nor his mate, though they swept the sea to the westward with their night-glasses, could anywhere distinguish her.
“We have done better than we could have hoped for,” observed the master. “It will soon be day, and we then need not fear her.”
“It will be more than three good hours yet before we have anything like daylight,” returned the mate; “and that cursed craft may be alongside us before then.”
“Well, we are prepared for her,” returned the master.
“I hope so,” exclaimed the mate; “for, by Heaven, Captain Bowse, there she is, well on our weather quarter.”
The mate spoke truly. There evidently was a brig, though dimly visible, hovering, as it were, like a dark spirit, in the quarter he indicated.
The crew soon discovered her also, and if any of them had before felt inclined to seek rest below, they did so no longer.
Another hour passed away; but the stranger had not altered her position. There she hung, like a dark shadow, indistinctly visible, yet causing no doubt of something ominous of evil being there, as some bird of prey hovering about, ready to pounce down any moment, and destroy them.
The morning light brought the stranger clearly in view, at about the same distance; and at the same period of time the ship, righting suddenly from the downward pressure, to which she had been so long exposed, showed that there was a lull of the wind. It was but momentarily, for again she heeled over as before. Again, however, she righted, and this time, her lee scuppers remained for longer free of the water.
Bowse looked to windward: he was about to order a couple of reefs more to be shaken out of the topsails, when another violent blast almost laid her on her beam ends.
The hardy crew, wearied with the unremitting exertions of the night, looked at each other in despair, as the sea literally washed up the decks to leeward. A loud crash was heard, and the fore-topmast went over the side, carrying away the jibboom. It was the last expiring effort of the gale.
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