Back in the great cabin, staring once more from her stern-ports at the oncoming enemy, the Major dissembled his dismay with the laudable aim of reassuring Miss Priscilla. He strove to quiet her alarm with assurances in which he, himself, had no faith.
And at the same time, on the quarter-deck, de Bernis, who in furious impatience had come up from below, was demanding to know what Bransome might be waiting for, and peremptorily ordering him to reef his topsails and bring the Centaur up to the wind so that her guns might come into action.
'You're surely mad,' the Captain answered him. 'She'll be upon us before we can get under way again.'
'That's because ye've delayed overlong already. Ye've increased the risk, That's all. But we must take it. We stake all now upon my chance to cripple her sailing power. Come, man! There's no more time to lose. Never mind reeling. Put up your helm, and leave the rest to me.'
Between an instinctive reluctance to a manoeuvre that was a pure gambler's throw and resentment aroused by the Frenchman's hectoring tone, Captain Bransome was perversely indignant.
'Get off my quarter-deck!' he roared. 'Do you command this ship, sir, or do I?'
De Bernis clutched the Captain's arm and pointed astern. 'Look, man! Look!'
The pirate was lowering and raising her fore topsail. It was the signal to heave to. Instantly de Bernis' quick mind had seen what advantage might he taken of it.
'It's your chance, man! Heaven-sent! You've but to pretend to comply. She'll be off her guard.' He flung an arm upwards to point to the Union flag aloft. 'Strike your colours, and heave to across her bows. Then leave it to me to put a whole broadside athwart her hawse.'
The Captain, however, shared none of the Frenchman's eager hopes. He seemed only alarmed by a proposal so redolent of buccaneering treachery.
'By God's death!' he answered. 'She'll sink us in reply.'
'If I shear away her shrouds, she'll be in no case to bring her guns to bear.'
'And if ye don't?'
'Things will be not a whit worse than they already are.'
Under the Frenchman's dark, compelling eyes the Captain's opposition visibly weakened. He saw that this was their last desperate chance. That there was no longer any choice. As if reading his mind, de Bernis urged him once again.
'Heave to, Captain. Give the word.'
'Aye, aye. It's all that's left to do, I suppose.'
'To it, then!' De Bernis left him, leapt down to the waist, and vanished once more through the scuttle to the deck below.
Even as he disappeared, Tom Leach, grown impatient, sent a charge of langrel from his fore-chasers through the shrouds of the Centaur, so as to quicken her master's compliance with his signals. In a tangle of cordage, a couple of spars came crashing to the deck.
Below, de Bernis heard the thuds and conjectured what had happened. He was not at all dismayed. The event, he concluded, must put an end to any lingering hesitation of Captain Bransome. He ordered his gunners to stand ready. Himself he snatched from one of them a linstock, and, crouching by the middle one of the five larboard guns, waited for the Centaur to go about.
Whilst he waited thus, he heard again the boom of cannon, and felt the vessel shudder under the heavy impact of a hit astern. Then he was flung violently against a bulkhead as the Centaur wildly yawed.
He recovered his balance, and for a moment his hopes ran high. She was heaving to. He perceived that she was veering. He saw the face of the waters shifting below. But he waited in vain for a sight of the pursuing ship. Only an empty sea confronted him. And at last he reached the exasperating conclusion that, in heaving to, Bransome had put his helm to starboard. Cursing him for a lubberly fool, de Bernis sped aft to the wardroom to verify his suspicion. Here he found a dismayed explanation of what was happening. That hit, of which he had felt the impact, had, by a monstrous chance, smashed the head of the Centaur's rudder, throwing her steering-tackles out of action. As if it did not suffice a malignant Fate that with damaged shrouds she should rapidly be losing way, now, with the helm out of control, she was left to yaw this way and that, as the wind took her.
Through the stern-ports the Black Swan was now visible to de Bernis, bearing down upon them at an alarming rate, and this, although she was already shortening sail, preparatory to boarding.
Bransome had waited too long to make the only throw that it was theirs to make. When at last he was willing to obey Monsieur de Bernis' persuasions, he suffered the common fate of him who will not when he may. A lucky shot from one of the pirate's powerful fore-chasers had rendered him helpless.
The wardroom gunner, a fair-haired, vigorous lad, returned a scared face upon Monsieur de Bernis when he came up to view the damage.
'We're beat, sir. They have us surely now.'
For a moment de Bernis stooped there, considering the tall ship that was scarcely five hundred yards astern. His lean, lined, swarthy face was set; his dark eyes steady and impassive. He went down on one knee beside one of the brass culverins, and laid it again. He laid it carefully, calm and unhurried, realizing that this slenderest of chances was the last one of which the Centaur still disposed. At this short range it was possible that the little brass cannon, which earlier had aroused his scorn, might be effective.
Rising, he took the smouldering match from the gunner's hand, blew upon it, touched off the gun, and stepped nimbly aside to avoid the recoil, But even as the gun went off, the Centaur yielding to a puff of wind, yawed again, swinging her stern a point or two alee. The Centaur fired her first and last shot into the void.
De Bernis looked at the young gunner, squatting there on his naked heels, and laughed in grim bitterness.
'C'est fini, mon gars. All is over. Next we shall have the grappling-hooks aboard, and then...' He shrugged, and tossed the useless match through the port.
White-faced, the lad swore through his strong young teeth. He raved a little about Tom Leach, desiring a red-hot hell for him.
'It looks as if it would be our turn first,' sighed de Bernis. Then he, too, broke out passionately for a moment. 'Ah! Sang de Dieu! What was needed here was a fighting seaman on the poop; not a lubberly merchant master. I should have stayed with him, and made him handle her as she should have been handled. Then any fool might have served these guns. But what use to talk now?'
He stood squarely in the port, in the space which the gun's recoil had left, watching the pirate's advance. She had further shortened sail, and she was creeping forward slowly now, but nonetheless surely, upon a prey no longer able to escape her. She held her fire, and waited to board, so as to do no further damage.
From where he stood, de Bernis could see the men on her bowsprit busy with the gaskets of her spritsail, and two others standing in the fore-chains holding the grapnels ready.
The gunner heard him muttering between his teeth. Then he turned, suddenly brisk.
'Up above with you, my lad, and bid the others on the gun-deck up with you. There's no more to be done down here.'
As for Monsieur de Bernis, himself, he took a short cut. He crawled out through the square port, steadying himself precariously against one of the stanchions of the shallow gallery over the counter.
Then, facing inwards, his bare feel upon the sill, he drew himself upright, and raised his right arm, so as to clutch one of the posts, which was within easy reach. Then, with the strength and agility of an ape, he swung clear and hoisted himself until he could bring his left hand to clutch the gallery rail. He heaved again nimbly, and his right hand followed. Another heave, and his elbow was on a level with the rail. He threw a leg over it, and so disappeared from the view of the amazed young gunner below.
To Miss Priscilla and the Major came then the most