The dark sea tossed and rolled between the vessels and little that happened on board either was visible to the other, so black was the night; but the light of the sky, which the water reflected, made of each a black shape clear-cut as of jet but finer than the most cunning hand could carve, in which a man might trace every line and rope.
And now from on board the ketch jets of flame burst out and after them came smartly the crack of muskets.
"Now, lads," the Old One thundered, "give fire and make an end of this petty galling. Give fire!"
A gun on the maintop-deck boomed and another followed; but there was confusion and stumbling and all were slow for want of practice together, and there was time lost ere the third gun spoke. Then, while Mate Malcolm was storming up the deck and the Old One was storming down, they heard the strange master calling to his gunners; then, to the vast amazement of the men of the Rose of Devon, who had cherished the delusion that their chase was a weak craft and an easy prize, on board the ketch as many as a dozen guns belched flame. Their thunder shook the sea and their balls sang through the rigging, and a lucky shot struck the Rose of Devon in the forecastle and went crashing through the bulkhead.
The ketch then tacked as if to give fire with her other broadside but deftly swung back again and before the Old One or Harry Malcolm had fathomed the meaning of it there rose from on board her, the cries of "Bear up and close with him!"--"Board him on his quarter!" "Have ready your graplins!"
"Sheer off, sheer off!" old Jacob roared. "Our powder is good for nought. Yea, she is in all truth a prickly porcupine."
"If we foul, cut anything to get clear!" cried the Old One. "Put down your helm! Veer out your sheets! Cast off weather sheets and braces! Aloft, there, and clear the main yard where the cut tacklings foul it! Good lad, boatswain, good lad!"
For on the yardarm Phil had drawn dirk and cut at the snarl of ropes, where a chance ball had wrought much mischief. Then, as the two vessels swung side by side he looked squarely into the eyes of a bearded man in the rigging of the ketch.
The Old One--give the Devil his due!--was handling his ship in a proper manner and by luffing he had kept abreast of those guns in the ketch which had spent their charges. But it was plain that the Rose of Devon had caught a tartar. In all truth, she had run upon a porcupine with quills set, for though a smaller vessel, the ketch, it now appeared, carried as many men or more, and every man knew his place and duty. Looking down on her deck, Phil saw her gun crews toiling with sponges and rammers to load anew.