"Not much!" exclaimed Donovan. "We"ll fight first!"
"Capt. Mazard," continued Raed, "I"m really sorry to have been the means of placing you in such a predicament. "The Curlew" will undoubtedly be condemned if seized. They would clap a prize-crew into her the first thing, and start her for England. But there"s no need of giving her up to them. That"s not a ship-of-war. We"ve got arms, and can fight as well as they. We can beat off that boat, I"ll be bound to say: and as for their ship, I don"t believe they"ll care to take her up here between the islands; and if they do,--why, we can sail away from them. But, for my own part, I had rather fight, and take an even chance of being killed, than be taken prisoner, and spend five months below decks."
"Fight it is, then!" exclaimed the captain doggedly.
By this time the boat was pulling up the channel to the north of the ice-field, within a mile of us.
"We might crowd sail, and stand away to the north of the islands here," I argued.
"Yes; but we don"t know how this roadstead ends farther on," replied Raed.
"It may be choked up with ice or small islets," said Kit. "In that case we should run into a trap, where they would only have to follow us to be sure of us. We might abandon the schooner, and get ash.o.r.e; but that would be nearly as bad as being taken prisoner--on this coast."
"Here"s clear sailing round this ice-field," remarked the captain. "My plan is to keep their ship on the opposite of it from us. If they give chase, we"ll sail round it."
"But how about their boat?" demanded Wade.
"We must beat it off!" exclaimed the captain determinedly.
"Then we"ve not a moment to lose!" cried Raed.--"Here, Donovan! help me move the howitzer to the stern.--Kit, you and Wash and Wade get up the muskets and load them. Bring up the cartridges, and get caps and everything ready."
The howitzer went rattling into the stern, and was pointed out over the taffrail. The big rifle followed it. To the approaching boat their muzzles must have looked a trifle grim, I fancy. Matches and splints were got ready, as well as wads and b.a.l.l.s. The muskets were charged, and the bayonets fixed. The schooner was kept moving gradually along at about the same distance from the ice. Bonney was stationed at the wheel, and Corliss at the sheets. Old Trull stood by the howitzer. The rest of us took each a musket, and formed in line along the after-bulwarks. Palmleaf, who in the midst of these martial preparations had been enjoying a pleasant after-breakfast snooze, was now called, and bade to stand by Corliss at the sheets. His astonishment at the sight which the deck presented to his lately-awakened optics was very great; the greater, that no one would take the trouble to answer his anxious questions.
The boat had now come up to within a quarter of a mile. With cutla.s.ses flashing, and oars dipping all together, they came closing in with a long, even stroke.
"We don"t want them much within a hundred yards of us," said Capt.
Mazard in a low tone.
"I"ll hail them," replied Raed, taking the speaking-trumpet, which the captain had brought along.
The crisis was close at hand. We clutched the stocks of our rifles, and stood ready. There was, I am sure, no blenching nor flinching from the encounter which seemed imminent. We could see the faces of the men in the boat, the red face of the officer in the stern. The men were armed with carbines and broad sabers. They had come within easy hail.
"Present arms!" commanded Capt. Mazard in clear tones.
Eight of us, with our rifles, stood fast.
"Repel _boarders_!"
Instantly we dropped on one knee, and brought our pieces to bear over the rail, the bayonets flashing as brightly as their own.
"Boat ahoy!" shouted Raed through the trumpet.
"Ahoy yourself!" roared the red-faced man in the stern. "What ship is that, anyway?"
This was rather insulting talk: nevertheless, Raed answered civilly and promptly,--
"The schooner-yacht "Curlew" of Portland."
"Where bound? What are you doing here?"
"Bound on a cruise into Hudson Bay!" responded Raed coolly; "for scientific purposes," he added.
"Scientific devils!" bl.u.s.tered the officer. "You can"t fool us so!
You"re in here on a trading-voyage. We saw a _kayak_ go off from you not an hour ago."
Not caring to bandy words, Raed made no reply; and we knelt there, with our muskets covering them, in silence. They had stopped rowing.
and were falling behind a little; for "The Curlew" plowed leisurely on.
"Why don"t you heave to?" shouted the irate commander of the boat. "I must look at your papers! Heave to while I come alongside!"
"You can"t bring that armed boat alongside of this schooner!" replied Raed. "No objections to your examining our papers; but we"re not green enough to let you bring an armed crew aboard of us."
"Then we shall come without _letting_! Give way there!"
But his men hesitated. The sight of our muskets, and old Trull holding a blazing splinter over the howitzer, was a little too much even for the st.u.r.dy pluck of English sailors.
"Bring that boat another length nearer," shouted Raed, slow and distinctly, "and we shall open fire on you!"
"The devil you will!"
"Yes, we will!"
At that we all c.o.c.ked our muskets. The sharp clicking was, no doubt, distinctly audible in the boat. The officer thundered out a torrent of oaths and abuse; to all of which Raed made no reply. They did not advance, however. We meant business; and I guess they thought so. Our stubborn silence was not misconstrued.
"How do I know that you"re not a set of pirates?" roared the Englishman. "You look like it! But wait till I get back to "The Rosamond." and I"ll knock some of the impudence out of you, you young filibusters!" And with a parting malediction, which showed wonderful ingenuity in blasphemy, he growled out an order to back water; when the boat was turned, and headed for the ship.
"Give "em three cheers!" said Kit.
Whereupon we jumped up, gave _three_ and a big groan; at which the red face in the stern turned, and stared long and evilly at us.
"No wonder he"s mad!" exclaimed Raed. "Had to row clean round this ice-field, and now has got to row back for his pains! Thought he was going to scare us just about into fits. Got rather disagreeably disappointed."
"He was pretty well _set up_, I take it," remarked the captain. "Had probably taken a drop before coming off. His men knew it. When he gave the order to "give way," they hung back: didn"t care about it."
"They knew better," said Donovan. "We could have knocked every one of them on the head before they could have got up the side. It ain"t as if "The Curlew" was loaded down, and lay low in the water. It"s about as much as a man can do to get from a boat up over the bulwarks. They might have hit some of us with their carbines; but they couldn"t have boarded us, and they knew it."
"You noticed what he said about knocking the impudence out of us?"
said Wade. "That means that we shall hear a noise and have cannon-shot whistling about our ears, I suppose."
"Shouldn"t wonder," said Kit.
"Have to work to hurt us much, I reckon," remarked the captain. "The distance across the ice-island here can"t be much under two miles and a half."
"Still, if they"ve got a rifled Whitworth or an Armstrong, they may send some shots pretty near us," said Wade.
"The English used to kindly send you Southern fellows a few Armstrongs occasionally, I have heard," said Raed.
"Yes, they did,--just by way of testing Lincoln"s blockade. Very good guns they were too. We ought to have had more of them. I tell you, if they have a good twenty-four-pound Armstrong rifle, and a gunner that knows anything, they may give us a job of carpenterwork--to stop the holes."