The Freebooters Part 62

"But you are wounded!" the Master objected. In fact, Captain Johnson had received an axe stroke, which laid open his right shoulder.

"Silence! I tell you. I allow no remarks."

The old sailor bowed his head, and wiped away a tear. After squeezing the hunter's hand, the Captain and his ten sailors leaped boldly into the sea, and disappeared in the darkness. At the news of fresh danger, Carmela had fallen, completely overwhelmed, in the bottom of the boat.

Master Lovel, leaning out, tried to discover his chief. Heavy tears coursed down his bronzed cheeks, and all his limbs were agitated by a convulsive quivering. The Mexicans approached nearer and nearer; they were already close enough for the number of their boats to be distinguished, and a schooner was already leaving the creek, and coming up under press canvas, to ensure the success of the attack.

At this moment a mournful cry, desperate as the last shriek of a dying man, came over the waters, and terrified all the men whom no danger could affect.

"Oh, the unhappy man!" Tranquil cried, as he rose and made a move to leap overboard. But Lovel seized him by the waist belt, and in spite of his resistance, compelled him to sit down again.

"What are you about?" he asked him.

"Well," Tranquil replied, "I want to pay my debt to your captain; he risked his life for me, and I am going in return to risk mine to save him."

"Good!" the Master exclaimed, "By heaven! You are a man. But keep quiet, that doesn't concern you; it is my business."

And ere Tranquil had time to answer him, he plunged into the waves. The Captain had presumed too much on his strength, he was hardly in the water ere his wound caused him intolerable suffering, and his arm was paralyzed. With that tenacity which formed the basis of his character, he tried to contend against the pain, and overcome it, but nature had proved more powerful than his will and energy, a dizziness had come over his sight, and he felt himself slowly sinking. At this moment he uttered that parting cry for help to which Lovel had responded by flying to his aid. Ten minutes pa.s.sed, minutes of agony, during which the persons who remained in the boat scarce dared to breathe.

"Courage, my lads," the panting voice of Lovel was suddenly heard saying, "he is saved!"

The sailors burst into a shout of joy, and laying on their oars, redoubled their efforts. A frightful discharge answered them, and the b.a.l.l.s flattened against the sides of the pinnace and dashed up the water around. The Mexicans, who had come within range, opened a terrible fire on the Texans, but the latter did not reply.

A dull noise was heard, followed by cries of despair and imprecations, and a black ma.s.s pa.s.sed to windward of the long boat. It was the brig coming to the a.s.sistance of its crew, and in pa.s.sing it sunk and dispersed the enemy's boats.

When she set foot on the deck of the brig, Carmela, at length succ.u.mbing to her emotions, lost her senses. Tranquil raised her in his arms, and, aided by Quoniam and the Captain, carried her hastily down to the cabin.

"Captain," a sailor shouted, as he rushed after him, "the Mexicans, the Mexicans!"

While the Texans were engaged in taking their wounded aboard, feeling convinced that the Mexican boats had been all, or at any rate the majority of them, sunk by the brig, they had not dreamed of watching an enemy they supposed crushed. The latter had cleverly profited by this negligence to rally, and collecting beneath the bows of the brig, had boldly boarded her, by climbing up the main chains, the spritsails, and any ropes' ends they had been able to seize. Fortunately, Master Lovel had the boarding nettings triced up on the previous evening, and through this wise precaution on the part of the old sailor, the desperate surprise of the Mexicans did not meet with the success they antic.i.p.ated from it.

The Texans, obeying the voice of their Captain, took up their weapons again and rushed on the Mexicans, who were already all but masters of the forepart of the s.h.i.+p. Tranquil, Quoniam, Captain Johnson, and Lovel, armed with axes, had flown to the front rank, and by their example excited the crew to do their duty properly. There, on a limited s.p.a.ce of ten square yards at the most, one of those fearful naval combats without order or tactics began, in which rage and brutal strength represent science. A horrible struggle, a fearful carnage, with pikes, axes, and cutla.s.ses; a struggle in which each wound is mortal, and which recalls those hideous combats of the worst days of the middle ages, when brute strength alone was the law.

The White Scalper had never before fought with such obstinacy. Furious at the loss of the prey he had so audaciously carried off, half mad with rage, he seemed to multiply himself, rus.h.i.+ng incessantly with savage yells into the densest part of the fight, seeking Carmela, and longing to kill the man who had so bravely torn her from him. Accident seemed for a moment to smile on him, by bringing him suddenly face to face with the Captain.

"Now for my turn," he exclaimed with a ferocious shout of joy.

The Captain wised his axe.

"No, no!" said Tranquil, as he threw himself hurriedly before him; "this victim is reserved for me; I must kill this human-faced tiger. Besides,"

he added, with a grin, "it is my profession to kill wild beasts, and this one will not escape me."

"Ah," the White Scalper said, "it is really fatality which brings you once more face to face with me. Well, be it so! I will settle with you first."

"It is you who will die, villain!" the Canadian replied. "Ah, you carried off my daughter and fancied yourself well concealed, did you?

But I was on your trail; for the last three months I have been following you step by step, and watching for the favourable moment for vengeance."

On hearing these words the Scalper rushed furiously on his enemy. The latter did not make a movement to avoid him; on the contrary, he seized him in his powerful arms, and tried to throw him down, while stabbing him in the loins with his dagger. These two men, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and foaming lips, animated by an implacable hatred, intertwined breast to breast, face to face, each trying to kill his adversary, caring little to live provided that his enemy died, resembled two wild beasts determined to destroy each other.

Texans and Mexicans had ceased fighting as if by common accord, and remained horrified spectators of this atrocious combat. At length the Canadian, who had been severely wounded before, fell, dragging his enemy down with him. The latter uttered a yell of triumph, which was soon converted into a groan of despair: Quoniam rushed madly upon him, but, unfortunately, he had miscalculated his distance, and they both fell into the sea, which closed over them with a hollow and ill-omened sound.

The Mexicans, deprived of their Chief, now only thought of flight, and rushed in mad disorder to their boats; a moment later, they had all quitted the brig. Quoniam reappeared, the worthy Negro was dripping with water. He tottered a few paces and fell by the side of Tranquil, to whom Carmela and the Captain were paying the most a.s.siduous attention, and who was beginning to recover his senses. A few minutes later the hunter felt strong enough to try and rise.

"Well!" he asked Quoniam, "Is he dead?"

"I believe so," the Negro replied; "look here," he added, as he offered him a small object he held in his hand.

"What is it?" the hunter asked.

Quoniam shook his head mournfully. "Look at it," he said.

After having attentively regarded the Negro for an instant, whose features expressed singular despondency, strange in a man of this stamp, he asked him in alarm:--

"Are you seriously wounded?"

The Negro shook his head.

"No," he said, "I am not wounded."

"What is the matter, then?"

"Take this," he said, stretching his arm out a second time, "take this and you will know."

Astonished at this singular persistence, Tranquil stretched out his arm, too.

"Give it here," he said.

Quoniam handed him an article which he seemed anxious to conceal from the persons present; the Canadian uttered a cry of surprise on seeing it.

"Where did you find this?" he asked anxiously.

"When I rushed on that man, I know not how it was, but this chain and the articles attached to it were placed, as it were, in my hand. When I fell into the sea, I clung to the chain; there it is, do what you please with it."

Tranquil, after again examining the mysterious object, concealed it in his chest, and gave vent to a profound sigh. All at once, Carmela started up in horror.

"Oh, look, look, father!" she shrieked, "Woe, woe, we are lost!"

The hunter started at the sound of the girl's voice, and his eyes filled with tears.

"What is the matter?" he asked in a weak voice

"The matter is," the Captain said rudely, "that unless a miracle take place, we are really lost this time, as Dona Carmela says."

And he pointed to some thirty armed boats, which were pulling up and converging round the brig, so as to enclose it in a circle, whence it would be impossible for it to escape.

"Oh! Fate is against us!" Carmela exclaimed in despair.

"No, it is impossible," Tranquil said quickly; "G.o.d will not abandon us thus!"