"I beg you, Captain Scott, not to let them go any farther," said Don very earnestly. "She is settling fast by the stern, and she will go down by the time they get alongside of her. She has settled so that the hole is more than half under water."
"That is so!" exclaimed Scott, as he glanced at the stern of the wreck.
"Hold on! Hold on!" he shouted with all the force of his lungs. "Back out!"
The two rowers obeyed the order promptly, and backed water with all their might; and it was fortunate that they did so, or they would have been caught in the swirl of the sinking vessel. Before they had retreated twenty feet, the stern of the Fatime suddenly went down, with a mighty rush of the water around her to fill up the vacant s.p.a.ce inside of her, and then she shot to the bottom, disappearing entirely from the gaze of the beholders, as well in the two boats of the ship"s company that had abandoned her, as of those on board of the Maud.
"That is the end of the pirate!" exclaimed Captain Scott, with a sort of solemnity in his tones and manner, as though he regarded the fate of the steamer as a retribution upon her for the use to which she had been applied.
"Amen!" responded Don at the window of the pilot-house.
The burden of his responsibility began to weigh upon his mind as Captain Scott witnessed the last scene of the drama. But his thoughts were recalled to the present moment when he saw Louis and Felix, the commotion of the water having subsided, pulling with all their might back to the scene of the catastrophe.
The little boat had not been far enough away from the turmoil of the water to be unaffected by it; and for a moment the puny craft had rolled and pitched as though it would toss its pa.s.sengers into the bay. A skilful use of the oars had saved the boat from being upset, and Louis and Felix began to survey the scene of the uproar as soon as the waves ceased the violence of their motion.
"Mazagan has gone to the bottom with her!" exclaimed Felix, as he looked about the various objects that had floated away from the wreck as it sank to the bottom.
"Perhaps not," replied Louis. "He was on the end of the bridge, and he may have floated off and come to the surface. Give way again, Flix!"
"There he is!" shouted the Milesian, as he bent to his oar with his boatmate. "His head just up out of the water, as though he had just come up from the bottom."
A few more strokes brought the boat to the point where Felix had seen the head just as it rose again. He rushed to the bow, and seized the drowning man by the collar of his vest, for he wore no coat, and dragged him to the middle of the boat. He seemed to be exhausted or insensible, for he did not speak. With a great deal of difficulty they labored to get him in; but the boat was so small that they did not succeed at once.
"All right, Flix; hold him where he is, if you can. The captain has started the Maud, and she will be here in a moment," said Louis. "Pa.s.s the painter of the boat under his arms, and make it fast if he is too much for you, though it will be but for a moment."
"I can hold him in the water easily enough, my darling. I wonder what made him come up," replied Felix.
"I suppose he was lighter than the water. But here is the Maud."
The little steamer ran alongside the tender, and Don and Pitts leaped into it. By the order of the captain they drew the insensible form into the boat, which was then taken on board with the victim in it. It was shoved aft to the cabin door, in which Morris had made up a bed for the sufferer.
The engineer and the cook proceeded to examine him. In his right shoulder they found a bullet-wound, which he must have received while on the bridge, doing his best for the destruction of the Maud. The cook declared that it was not a very bad wound, and not at all likely to be fatal. Pitts brought some brandy from the medicine-chest, and gave him a small quant.i.ty of it.
This stimulant revived him, and then he wanted to talk; but Pitts would not permit him to do so. He remained with him, while Louis and Felix went forward to report to the captain, and Don went to the engine-room to tell Felipe the news.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CONSULTATION IN THE PILOT-HOUSE
Felipe Garcias, the first engineer of the Maud, had filled the same position on board of her when she was owned and used by Ali-Noury Pacha.
He was a young man of eighteen now, a native of the Canary Islands, and a very religious Catholic. The orgies conducted by His Highness on board of the little steamer, not to say the crimes, had disgusted and revolted the pious soul of the youth, and he had rebelled against his master.
For this he had been abused; and he had run away from his employer, departing alone in the Salihe, as she was then called. After an adventure with the unreformed Scott, the "Big Four" had been picked up at sea in an open boat, and conveyed to Gibraltar, where the Fatime had followed the Guardian-Mother from Funchal.
Felipe quieted his conscience for taking the steam-yacht by causing her to be made fast to the Pacha"s steamer, and leaving her there. At that distance from his home the little craft was an elephant on the hands of the owner, and he had sold her for a nominal price to one who had disposed of her to the present owners. Don had been himself an engineer on board of the Fatime; but he had been threatened when he criticised affairs which occurred on board of her, and he was ill-treated. He escaped from her at Gibraltar, and had been employed by Captain Ringgold in his present capacity.
"The Fatime has gone to the bottom, Felipe," said Don as he entered the engine-room. "There will be no more defiance of the laws of G.o.d and man on board of her, for the present at least."
"G.o.d is good, and G.o.d is just," replied the chief engineer; but he did not understand English quite well enough to comprehend the remark of Don, who proceeded to repeat and explain it.
Captain Scott still remained at the wheel, and had not left it for a moment. He was thinking all the time of what he had done, and wondering what his recording angel had written down in regard to his action in the greatest emergency of his lifetime.
"Mazagan is wounded in the shoulder; but Pitts thinks it will not prove to be a fatal wound," said Felix as he went into the pilot-house.
"Has he come to his senses?" asked the captain.
"He has; and he wants to talk."
"I should like to hear him talk; for there are some things about this affair which I do not yet understand."
"The cook says he must not talk yet, and he is taking charge of the case."
"Where is Louis?"
"He was looking on, and doing what he could for the wounded man. Do you know, Captain Scott, I believe it was the ball from his rifle that struck Mazagan!" said Felix, with an impressive expression on his face.
"Nonsense, Flix!" exclaimed Scott. "How under the canopy can you tell who fired the shot, when five of you were firing at the same time?"
"Within my knowledge Louis has defended himself with a revolver in his hand three times, and in every one of them he hit his man in the right shoulder," replied Felix. "He never fires to kill; he is a dead shot, and he can put the ball just where he pleases every time. If Mazagan had been shot dead, I should know that Louis did not do it."
"I remember that the fellow in the Muski was. .h.i.t in the right shoulder,"
added the captain.
"That disables a man without making a very dangerous wound. But, Captain, darling, don"t whisper a word to Louis that he did it, for it might make him feel bad."
"I won"t say a word; but ask him to come to the pilot-house, for I want to see him, Flix," said Scott, as he had had no opportunity since the catastrophe to speak to the one he regarded as the most important personage on board of the Maud.
In fact, but a very few minutes had elapsed since the event occurred.
Those on the wreck had made haste to escape before they should be carried down with it, and they were still pulling at no great distance from the Maud for the sh.o.r.e. Louis appeared at the door of the pilot-house very promptly; for he imagined that his presence before the wounded man was not agreeable to him, and that it emphasized in his mind the disastrous failure of his expedition to this island.
"What next, Louis?" asked the captain with a smile on his face; for he believed he had stolen his friend"s first question "after the battle."
"That is for you to decide, Captain Scott, and I intend to avoid any interference with the duties of the commander," replied Louis.
"But when the commander asks for advice it may be given without offence," suggested Scott. "We have just got out of the tightest place in which we have ever been placed, and our experience hitherto has been boy"s play compared with this day"s work."
"That is very true; this is by all odds the most serious affair in which we have ever been engaged," answered Louis, as he seated himself on the divan.
"I am not going to beat about the bush for a moment, my dear fellow; and before we talk about anything else, even of what we will do next in this trying situation, I want to say that I am very much troubled in my mind in regard to the consequences of what _I_ have done," continued Scott, as he seated himself by the side of his friend and model on the divan.
"I don"t wonder that you are troubled; so am I, for I think we may well regard what has happened as an extraordinary event," added Louis.
"I say what _I_ have done; for I purposely abstained from asking advice of you or any other fellow, after I had decided what to do, even if there had been time for me to consult you. In other words, I took the entire responsibility upon myself; and there I purpose to have it rest."
"Of course you had no time to ask the opinion of any fellow, even if it could have been of any use to you."