Beneath him the _Cocotte_, smoking like a damped furnace, the blood trickling from between her seams, was settling fast.
"Got her bellyful all snug," said the Gunner complacently, picking his teeth.
He strolled off to old Ding-dong, propped on his corpse beside the wheel.
"Well, sir, you play a pretty stick with a handspike still!--how"s yerself?"
"Tidy," grunted the veteran. "How fur"s yon frigate yet? I can"t see over the side, settin on my little sofia."
"Within random shot, sir. She"s got a slant of wind, and is crowding all sail to get alongside."
"Then we"d best be sturrin. How are we ridin?"
The Gunner looked over the side.
"Why, middlin deep, sir."
"Then cut the boats away, and the anchors. Stave in the water-casks.
Heave all spare shot and tackle overboard--we need nowt but the boards we stand on and the guns we fight; and make what sail you can on her.... I shall bear away for the sh.o.r.e. Don"t mean bein took at my time o life."
IV
A breeze light as a lady"s kiss smote the water. The topsails of the sloop began to fill and flutter.
Deep in the water as a barge, she drew away from her floundering antagonist. As she did so, the privateer, as though loth to let her depart unsaluted, barked a sullen farewell.
A roar of triumph from the _Coquette_, clearing now on the port-bow and a fainter shout from the frigate to starboard, told their own tale.
The mizzen, struck twenty foot above the deck, came down with a crash. With it fell the red-cross flag, and the faces of the crew.
"Hand me that striped petticut!" roared the Gunner, pointing to the tricolour lying entangled in the ruins of the privateer"s main-top on the deck of the sloop. "I want to blow me nose."
He leaped on to the bulwark, flag in hand; and staying himself by the shroud, blew his nose boisterously on the enemy"s colours.
The crew, busy clearing the wreckage of the mizzen, roared delight.
The Gunner jumped down, and spread the flag over the old Commander"s feet as he lay.
"There"s the first on em, sir. There"s two more to follow."
"Make it so," said the old man grimly.
He was chewing a quid, and a battered c.o.c.ked hat tilted over his eyes.
V
The Gunner marched away, eyes to his right, eyes to his left. And as he marched, he swept off his c.o.c.ked hat.
"Chaps," he called to the remnant of the crew gathered grimy about the after-hatch. "I thank my G.o.d for this booriful sight. Frenchman to port!" shooting his left arm. "Frenchman to starboard!" shooting his right. "Frenchman astarn!" with a backward toss. "And G.o.d A"mighty aloft. What more can a Christian ask?"
A shot from the frigate splashed under the bows of the sloop, sluicing her deck.
"There she spouts!" roared the Gunner, and clapping on his hat ran, kicking his heels behind him. "Come along, the baby-boys!--the last fight o the little _Tremendous_--and the best."
III
UNDER THE CLIFF
CHAPTER XIV
SUNDAY EVENING
It was evening.
The little _Tremendous_ lay under the cliff, pounding gently, gently, on a reef. Her back was broken, she had a heavy list to starboard, and her bulwark was awash.
The mainmast had gone by the board. The quarterdeck carronades, loosed from their moorings, sprawled in the wash of the water, a dead man floating amongst them. The deck was a tangle of wreckage and b.l.o.o.d.y sails. From a splintered stump, more like a shaving-brush than a mast, the red-cross flag still flapped.
Astern of her, in the deep water, lay her enemies in smoking ruins.
The privateer, her foretop in flames, was dishevelled as a virago after a street fight; while great white clouds puffing out of the frigate"s quarter-gallery told that she was afire.
The sea wallowed about the sloop, green and sleek and greedy. There was scarcely a ruffle on the water; only a huge slow heaving, as of some monster breathing deeply, and licking its lips before an orgie.
Firing had long ceased.
Kit, squatting, his back against the mizzen-stump, was coming to with splitting head.
All through that golden summer afternoon the sloop had drifted sh.o.r.eward, privateer and frigate hammering her from either side.
Towards evening, her last shot spent, the frigate boarded. The Gunner, hoa.r.s.e as a crow, b.l.o.o.d.y as a beefsteak, had brought up the weary remnant of the crew to repel the attack, Kit aiding him manfully.
Men had been dancing idiotically about the boy; he had heard the Gunner"s raucous voice close in his ear,
"Gad, you"re a game un!" and had run at a nightmare man with goggle eyes.
Then something had happened.
Now all was calm and sunset peace, and dew on the deck among the blood stains.