CHAPTER XXXII
THE COMBAT
I again ascended to the deck.
I had taken a double-barrelled carbine, and a heavy Turkish damaskeened battle-axe, formerly bought as an object of curiosity, and which, under these circumstances, became an excellent weapon, for, besides its heavy blade, it ended in a very sharp iron spear.
I tried to discover the pirate, but whether because the ship had put out its light, or because it had greatly prolonged its tack, I could no longer see it. The yacht's crew had been promptly armed.
By the glimmer of some gun-lighters, fixed by their iron points in some buckets filled with water, we saw the sailors placed in charge of the guns, standing near the carronades; others, placed on either side of the schooner, were loading their guns, while an old gray-haired boatswain had just taken the tiller from the hands of one of his much younger comrades, whose experience was, doubtless, not sufficient to enable him to take this important post, during the combat.
All this took place in profound silence; one could hear only the dull noise of the ramrods on the wads, or the sound of the butt end of the muskets on the bridge. Williams, at the stern, stood on his quarter-deck, giving the last order. Geordy, charged with the direction of the gunners, superintended this part of the service.
Falmouth stood on the bridge. He had again put on his mask of habitual indifference.
"All is ready, my lord," said Williams to him. "Does your Grace wish to fight this pirate under sail or shall we board her?"
"Which do you prefer, a fight on board or a fight under sail?" Falmouth asked me, as if he were asking me to choose between Bordeaux or Madeira wine.
"I am absolutely indifferent," I replied, smiling; "let us act without ceremony; trust to the judgment of Williams, it is safer."
"What do you think, Williams?" demanded Falmouth.
"That we keep under sail. With the artillery of your Grace's yacht we can destroy this pirate without its being able to approach us, or do us much harm; for I do not suppose it could have taken artillery aboard."
"And the boarding?" asked Falmouth.
"I believe my lord knows the crew of the yacht well enough to be certain that, after a good contest, the pirates will be repulsed, or perhaps that their boat will remain in our power. But," suddenly cried Williams, pointing to a white spot with the end of his spy-glass, "the ship has put about; here it is returning upon us, my lord."
In fact, I soon saw its white sails appear in the darkness as it rapidly approached.
I loaded my carbine, put my axe near me, and waited.
I remember perfectly what I saw in my radius of action, not having had, I confess, the courage to isolate myself enough from my personal preoccupations to comprehend this bloody scene.
I was standing at the stern and off the side of the yacht.
A few feet in front of me, at the foot of the mizzenmast, with his back to me, an old sailor worked the helm.
Williams, on his quarter-deck, was giving some orders to a boatswain, who listened hat in hand. Falmouth, mounted on a cannon, holding to the shrouds with one hand, his gun in the other, was looking in the direction of the mystic.
The most profound silence reigned on board the yacht; this was a moment of grave and solemn expectation.
As for me, that which I felt reminded me very much, if I may be excused this childish comparison, of the uneasy emotion that I felt in my childhood when I was waiting minute by minute the shot from a gun fired in the scene of a play.
Then, must I acknowledge another weakness in my character? I had never faced any danger without imagining immediately all its fatal risks for myself. As in the duel of which I have spoken, a maddening duel, I thought not of death, but of the hideous mutilation which might result from a wound. At the moment of the boarding of this vessel, I had the same preoccupation. I saw myself with horror deprived of an arm or a leg, and thus made a repulsive object of pity to every one.
A light touch on the shoulder aroused me from my reflections.
I turned around; Falmouth, without interrupting the "Rule Britannia" which he whistled between his teeth, showed me with the end of his gun something white on the horizon which was gradually approaching us.
I began to distinguish perfectly the mystic.
Suddenly, I was dazzled by a sheet of light which for a moment illuminated the horizon, the sea, and all that I saw of the yacht. At the same time I heard the successive detonation of many firearms and the whistling of bullets passing near me.
From the sharp noise, from the crackling which followed the detonation, from some splinters of wood which fell at my feet, I knew that the balls had lodged either in the masts or in the hull of the ship.
My first motion was to turn back, my second to prepare and to fire in the direction of the mystic, but reflection restrained me.
My impatience, my curiosity, then became intense. I say curiosity, because this word alone seems to me to well express the eager impatience which agitated me.
I felt my veins throb violently, the blood rush to my heart, and my forehead flush.
Hardly had the echo of the detonation died away than the pirate came out of a thick cloud of smoke, having one of its sails half-brailed.
It was a strange spectacle.
By the uncertain light of the moon, the body of this ship and its rigging was outlined in black upon the whitish cloud that the wind blew towards us.
An instant afterwards the ship lay alongside the yacht from stern to bow, almost touching her.
By the light of the ship's lantern we could see the man with the black cowl still at the helm; with one hand he worked the tiller, with the other he pointed to the yacht, and I heard him call in Italian to the pirates who were pressing tumultuously to his side: "Fire no more; board her! Board her!"
According to the manœuvres of the pirates, the boarding would take place on the right, and all the crew of the yacht precipitated themselves from this side.
The gunners seized the cords which operated the pan-covers of the carronades.
I covered the man with the black cowl perfectly with the muzzle of my carbine.
At the moment when I pressed the trigger, Williams shouted, "Fire all!"
I fired, but was unable to see the effect of my ball.
A great explosion shook the yacht. It was the four starboard carronades loaded with grape-shot, which were fired almost at short range on the mystic pirate, without doubt at the moment when they boarded the yacht, for the latter received so violent a shock that I was almost thrown down.
Several balls whistled around my head.
A heavy body fell behind me, and I heard Falmouth call to me, in a feeble voice:
"Take care of yourself."
I turned anxiously towards him, when a man, wearing the Catalan bonnet, leaped upon the deck, caught me with one hand by my cravat, and with the other fired a shot from a pistol so near me that the priming burned my hair and beard.
Making a quick movement and throwing myself backward, I averted the ball which grazed my shoulder. I was holding my carbine loaded with one shot. At the moment when the pirate, seeing he had missed me, struck me on the head with the butt end of his pistol, I thrust the barrel of my carbine full against his chest, and fired.
The concussion was so strong that my arms were benumbed.
The pirate wheeled violently, stumbled against me, and fell on his back, gasping convulsively.
I turned about and trod upon some one; it was Falmouth, who was lying at the foot of the mainmast.
"You are wounded?" I cried, throwing myself upon him.
"I believe that I have something like a broken thigh; but pay no heed to me!" he exclaimed. "Take care! there comes another of those robbers, I see his head, face him or you are lost!"
My heart was broken at the sight of Falmouth extended on the deck.
I did not for a moment dream of the danger I was running; I wished first of all to rescue Henry from a certain death, for being thus unable to defend himself, he would be inevitably massacred.
Fortunately I saw the scuttle, which had not been closed (it was an opening three feet square, which communicated with the common saloon). I immediately took Falmouth under the arms, dragged him as far as this opening, in spite of his resistance, for he struggled, crying:
"There is that brigand, he is going to leap upon you!"
Without replying, and using all my strength, I seated him on the edge of the scuttle, his legs hanging within, and said to him, "Now let yourself slide, you, at least, will be in safety."
"Too late! You have lost your life in saving me!" cried Falmouth, with a tone of anguish.
As he said these words, with a last effort I made him slide into the interior of the chamber, where he had nothing more to fear.
All this had happened in less time than it has taken to write it.
I was still down on one knee, when an iron hand seized me by the neck, a strong knee pressed against my loins, and at the same time some one gave me a violent blow on the shoulder. This blow was followed by a sharp sensation of cold.
My boarding-axe was on the deck at my side; I seized it, and, in making a desperate effort to raise myself, I struck behind me, and by chance a furious blow, without doubt, reached my adversary, for my axe was stopped by a hard body, and the hand which held me slackened its hold at once. I was then able to straighten myself.
Scarcely was I on my feet when the man with the black cowl, who had attacked me when I lowered Henry into the saloon, threw himself upon me.
I was without arms. Having let my boarding-axe fall, we laid hold hand to hand, and an exciting struggle began.
His mantle, with the cowl turned up, enveloped him almost entirely, and concealed his face. He twisted one of his legs strongly around mine, in order to throw me; then squeezing me in order to choke me, he attempted to lift me from the deck and throw me over the side of the schooner.
If he was strong, I was no less so.
The ardent desire to avenge Falmouth, the anger, and, shall I so call it? this puerility, the disgust of feeling the breath of this brigand on my cheek, gave me new strength.
Disengaging one of my hands from both his powerful ones, I could fortunately take the pirate by the throat. There I felt the cord of a scapular. I twisted it around my hand and quickly gave it two or three turns.
I probably was beginning to strangle my enemy, for I noticed that his embrace weakened, when, by a lucky chance, a motion of the boat made us both stumble.
Already exhausted, the pirate fell, his back arched on the gunwale,—a last effort, and I was about to succeed, I was about to throw myself upon him with my whole weight, when he madly bit me in the face.
Although at this instant several shots flashed a bright light, and the cowl of the pirate was a little loosened, I could not distinguish his features, for his face was covered with blood.
Only in throwing me backward I saw that his teeth were singularly white, sharp, and separated.
Hurling myself again upon him, I succeeded in lifting him from the deck, placing him lengthwise on the gunwale, and at last in throwing him over the railing of the yacht.
But when he saw himself thus suspended above the sea, the pirate made a last effort, held with one hand to my neck, the other to my hair, and held me seized in this way, he outside the boat, and I within.
I was seeking to disengage myself when I received a violent blow on the head.
The hands of the man with the cowl relaxed, and I swooned.
