“Why, Dodd, old fellow,” said Kenealy cheerfully, “this is not the way to go into action.”
“Colonel,” replied Dodd, “to save this ship and cargo, I must be wherever the bullets are, and I will too.”
Fullalove, more sagacious than the worthy colonel, said earnestly--“Captain Dodd, may I never see Broadway again, and never see Heaven at the end of my time, if I fail you. There's my hand.”
They all three joined hands, and Dodd seemed to cling to them. “God bless you both! God bless you! Oh, what a weight your true hands have pulled off my heart. Good-bye, for a few minutes. The time is short. I'll just offer a prayer to the Almighty for wisdom, and then I'll come up and say a word to the men and fight the ship, according to my lights.”
Sail was no sooner shortened and the crew ranged, than the captain came briskly on deck, saluted, jumped on a carronade, and stood erect. He was not the man to show the crew his forebodings.
“My men, the schooner coming up on our weather quarter is a Portuguese pirate. His character is known; he scuttles all the ships he boards, dishonours the women, and murders the crew. We cracked on to get out of the narrows, and now we have shortened sail to fight this blackguard, and teach him to molest a British ship. I promise, in the Company's name, twenty pounds prize-money to every man before the mast if we beat him off or out-manoeuvre him; thirty if we sink him; and forty if we tow him astern into a friendly port. Eight guns are clear below, three on the weather side, five on the lee; for, if he knows his business, he will come up on the lee quarter: if he doesn't that is no fault of yours nor mine. The muskets are all loaded, the cutlasses ground like razors----”
“A good ship under our feet, the God of justice overhead, British hearts in our bosoms, and British colours flying--run 'em up!--over our heads.” (The ship's colours flew up to the fore, and the Union Jack to the mizen peak.) “Now, lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of her (stamping on the deck) swims beneath my foot, and--what do you say?”
The reply was a fierce “hurrah!” from a hundred throats, so loud, so deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the creeping-on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather quarter. Arrived within a cable's length, he double-reef'ed his foresail to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next moment a tongue of flame, and then a gush of smoke, issued from his lee bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the _Agra's_ mizen top. He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship. This prologue made the novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, “If we keep him aloof we are done for.”