University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE FLAG OF TRUCE.

The personage alluded to at the close of the last chaper, was a young man
of slight figure and certainly not more than three and twenty. His face was
very handsome and exceedingly youthful; but the expression of his brilliantly
grey eagle eyes, and the firm character of his mouth, with a general air of decision
and resolute daring in his appearance, showed that he was not young in
action or in the experiences of an adventurous life.

He wore upon his head a serviceable blue cloth cap adorned with a gold
band, and a short navy-blue round-about, with gold!ace upon the shoulder and
anchor buttons thickly placed together. He was without a vest, displaying a
full linen bosom frilled after the Spanish fashion. His white ample trowsers
were secured by a polished black belt buckled around his waist, to which hung
by gilt chainlets a short Moorish scabbard, the sabre belonging to it being
held beneath his arm. He had a fair complexion somewhat sun-browned, and
fair hair inclining to auburn; and although it was naturally a mass of the richest
tresses, it was now worn thrust back from his cap and temples in a bold
negligent style, that had a striking effect in displaying more fully the resolute
expression and manly beauty of his finished profile.

He was standing at the breech of the gun taking sight along the enormous
tube. By his side stood a youth apparently not more than sixteen or seventeen,
with large eyes, as dark as an Arabian's, but with remarkable ugliness
of figure and feature. He was looking intensely into the face of the other,
while all other eyes were watching the corvette as she wore slowly. In his
hand he held the lighted match. Near him, with his hand grasping a part of
the massive frame that supported the huge gun, was a seaman, a man of large
stature, and a countenance expressive of mingled bravery and good-nature;
doubtless once an old-man-of-war's-man. This man directed the movements
of the apparatus of the gun. A little to the left of him was Hebert Vincent,
closely watching the corvette.

`A very little down,' said the youthful personage we have described, speaking
in a low, self-possessed tone of voice.'

`Down a little it is, sir,' responded the man-of-wars-man depressing the
sight.

`A hair's breadth to the right.'

`It is, sir.'

`Steady, now,' he said in the same low, quiet tone as if conversing above the
head of a slumbering infant he did not wish to wake.

`Steady 'tis, sir,' answered the bluff seaman.

The young man let his eye range once more along the sight of the piece.
He then raised his head, slightly waved his hand for all to stand aside, and, in
silence, took the lighted match from the hand of the black-eyed youth. All
eyes were now fixed upon the corvette. The schooner itself was stationary,
having been hove to three minutes before and the direction of the gun therefore
remained pointed exactly as it was sighted, with that fatal accuracy of
aim which distinguished him who himself had now levelled it.

Slowly the corvette swung round. Gradually her stern began to present

itself. Every eye was rigid, every tongue mute, every noise hushed on board
the privateer. The stern of the Englishman's ship now lies in full view; her
three masts and bowsprit are in a single line. Every eye is turned instinctively
towards the young man who stands at the breech of the gun. Every look
tells him that the instant is come—is passing. A smile is seen upon his lips—
a smile of triumph and conscious power. He glances rapidly along the gun,
ignites the match by sweeping it round in the air above his head and then
lightly lets it descend upon the powder.

The little vessel trembled in every beam at the discharge. The decks were
enveloped in a cloud of thick smoke and the iron missile went upon its message
of death and devastation.

`My God—do you see that?' exclaimed Colonel Hood, turning to Henry.—
`That shot has saved the schooner. If I had that Freemantle here I could hug
him to my heart!'

`See, sir! The next mast has also broken off and gone!

`Yes; and I hope the foremast will go also! That was a shot such as was
never fired before. I could plainly hear the crashing of its entrance into the
stern even here!'

The sound had not only reached their ears but those of all on board the
schooner, even before the smoke that enveloped her would let them see the effect.
The young man, on firing the piece, had calmly walked aft, as if confident
of the result, and while others sprung aloft to overlook the smoke, he
merely gave the order to brace round, and leant over the quarter as quietly as
if he had only lighted a cigar instead of a gun charged with so much mischief.
As soon as the schooner was under motion again and had sailed out of her
smoke, he saw what his shot had done.

`It must have passed right through his centre cabin-window,' he said laughing,
turning to Hebert Vincent.

`Yes, and passing through his cabin cut off his mizzen-mast between decks,
for it has gone by the board with all its hamper.'

`And wounded his main-mast also,' said Freemantle; `for it begins to sway
this way and that as if it would follow the mizzin!'

`And there it goes yards and all, toppling over into the sea,' shouted Hebert;
while a hundred voices sent up a loud hurra from the decks of the schooner
which was answered by the crowds on the beach and heights of land.

The devastation which this single globe of iron caused, cutting through both
the after masts, so that one and then the other went by the board, tearing up the
decks, demolishing the bulwarks and entangling the men and guns with the
falling rigging and sails, part of which fell upon them, this unprecedented destruction
in addition to the great loss of life which must always follow a raking
shot, prevented the corvette not only from completing the manœuvre of
wearing, but rendered her perfectly stationary upon the water, her stern still
presented to the schooner. Thus with her foremast alone standing with the
loss of its royal-mast which the main had dragged with it in its fall, and with
the wreck of her masts hanging over her sides, one on each quarter, she lay
perfectly at the mercy of the schooner, not having a single gun that she could
bring to bear upon her.

`One more shot and you sink her!' cried Hebert placing his hand on Freemantle's
arm. `She is at our mercy.'

`And the merchantman at hers. That broadside she was swinging round to
give me, she will drive into that ship. And if she does, I sink her and every soul
on board.'

The young privateersman spoke in a tone that could not have been heard
three yards distant, but it was more impressive than if he had shouted it so as
to have reached the ears of his foe.

`How can you help it sir? The merchantman is within point blank range,
and she will be sure to fire into her as soon as she gets clear of the wreck of
her masts and sails that now cover her guns!'

`Lower away the cutter! Lively!' he cried, giving the order with earnestness.
`Place a white flag up in the stern upon a staff!'

`Gig's, away!' called out the boatswain; and in less than a minute the
captain's gig was lowered, and along side with a flag of truce flying above the
coxswains head!

`Lay her to, Mr. Flint!' he said, to his next in command, as he sprung into
the boat, `and if she fires into the ship blow her out of the water; but on no
account fire unless she does so. If she sees my flag she will wait to know
what I want before she fires! I would send up signals at once, but she may
not be able to read them! I had better go!'

The boat was now swiftly flying over the water from the schooner in the direction
of the corvette. Freemantle stood up in the stern-sheets with his spy-glass
at his eye watching anxiously the progress they made in clearing the
wreck of the masts upon that side which lay towards the merchantman. He
expressed his thoughts to Hebert who accompanied him in the boat.

`They seem to have every man engaged, and in three minutes they will cut
all clear from the side and then they can use their guns. As they can't bring
them to bear on me, they will be sure to avenge themselves upon the merchantman,
unless I can get nigh enough to hail, or they see my flag of truce and
wait my coming up. But I have given them so hard a blow that they will be
little likely to heed a white flag. But if they do fire, I will make her a target
for my long gun until I sink her, or she sinks me!'

`You have acted very boldly in this defence of the merchantman,' said
Hebert. `But I think you showed more boldness in venturing so nigh the
Englishman now!'

`If you fear, you should not have come!'

`If I feared, I never should have boarded your schooner,' answered Hebert,
with a flushed cheek.

`Nay, never be angry. I know you to be brave, Vincent! Do me the favor
to wave that flag aloft! I fear they will not see it.'

`Yes, and it is answered. There flies one above their taffrail,' cried Hebert

`Then the ship is safe,' exclaimed Freemantle with a look of pleasure'—
Bend to your oars men.'

When the English captain saw the extent of the mischief the shot from the
privateer had done, and beheld first one and then another mast go by the
board with everything set, he stood a moment upon the poop in an attitude
of astonishment and despair. In one moment his gallant ship had been made
a wreck. The shrieks of the wounded that followed the passage of the cannon
ball through the bowels of his vessel, the crashing of the masts, the rending
of the cordage, the confused shouts of his men seemed to paralyse him.
In the dead silence that followod the crashing he recovered himself, and seeing
that his foremast stood, he swore vengeance both upon the schooner and
merchantman.

`The infernal Yankee shall pay for this,' he thundered. `All hands to clear
away the wreck. Get the guns free and give the ship the broadside. I will
sink her if I cant the infernal schooner. A pretty condition this for one of
His Majesty's ships to be placed in by a privateer clipper that would serve for
a frigate's first cutter. If I can then get a second broadside to bear, I'll give
it to the schooner.'

`We are now lying at the mercy of the Yankee, sir, `said his first lieutenant.
`If we fire into the ship he will send another shot into us.'

`He may as it is.'

`Then we had best display a flag of truce.'

`To a privateer-schooner.'

`It is the only way of saving the corvette, sir. It will take ten minutes before
we can work the larboard guns so as to fire a broadside into the merchant
vessel.'

The captain took his glass, surveyed the schooner a moment, and then
said—

`You are right, Everby. I will hoist a flag of truce and then send him
word that if he will withhold his fire I will not fire into the merchantman.'

`That is the best course, sir. For we shall be for ten minutes to come
wholly in his power.'

`True and another such a thunderbolt will send us to father Neptune's
lower regions. That shot came aboard of us as if the devil himself had sent
it. I would give a little to know what chap is in command of that imp of a
schooner.'

`He has shown himself daring and skilful beyond all men that I ever encountered.
The idea of his presuming to interfere with a twenty gun sloop
in her chase.'

`None but a d—d Yankee privateersman would ever have thought of it.
But hold on. Stop that flag going up!' cried the captain. `I see a boat leaving
her with a white flag flying astern.

`So much the better. We dont have to show it first.'

`Acknowledge it, when they get a little nearer, Mr. Everby. By the rod of
Moses, they come bravely on. Now I shall see my man. Think you he will
dare come aboard?'

`He seems to be pulling strait for us. It is a mere youth—he who is stauding
up.'

In a few minutes the boat came so near that the Englishman laid aside his
glass and took his trumpet in his hand.