On the quarter-deck, by the side of the capstan, he found Halyard and the drummer.
“Beat to quarters!” he said, to the latter.
The drummer obeyed; and while his spirit-stirring summons rolled through the ship, Hildebrand laid his hand on Halyard’s arm, and drew him aside.
“Man the three boats,” he said. “I will run straight for the galleon, and, as we come alongside, drop you all astern. When I think ye are fairly on your way, I will give the enemy a broadside, and, in the confusion, do you board her, all with one mind, on her nearer quarter. I will thereafter lend thee what succour I can.”
“A right noble project!” observed Halyard, feeling his pockets with both his hands. “How many men shall I muster, Sir?”
“Forty!” answered Hildebrand, “which, as thou knowest, is half the crew. Now,” he added, in a deeper tone, as he grasped Halyard by the hand, “give thee farewell!”
Halyard did not reply on the instant. His pause, however--only that the crisis rendered the briefest pause perceptible--was hardly apparent, albeit, when he did speak, his voice was somewhat shaken.
“Farewell, noble captain!” he said. “Life is but short; let us live well on the road, says the gentle Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”
During the short interval that the commander and his lieutenant thus conversed, the drummer had beaten his summons, which was to lead so many to a bloody end, with unabated assiduity. Short as the interval was--and it embraced but a few minutes--it sufficed to assemble on the deck the whole of the crew, and to cover every arrangement for entering into action. Each man’s bed, tied up taught in his hammock like a sack, was placed in the hammock-nettings, along the top of the ship’s bulwarks; the decks were cleared of all lumber; the guns were all manned; and the powder, with the portfires, sponges, and other implements for charging them, handed up the hatchways. Every man was armed; the flag of Old England was hoisted in the mizen; and nothing remained, for the furtherance and completion of the design they had in hand, but to come up with the enemy.
In this state of things, Hildebrand struck off the men who, according to his previous arrangement, were to accompany Halyard, and ordered them to the boats. There, by his directions, they were all supplied with boarding-pikes, in addition to their cutlasses and pistols; and, though it was not quite likely that it would be required, an extra allowance of ammunition. The other men were ordered to their respective quarters of the ship.