Fitz the Filibuster Part 58

"Yes, but it would be a greater pity for my beautiful little schooner to fall a prize to that wretched tea-kettle there; and I won't have my lads treated as prisoners. I'd sooner we all had to take to the woods."

"All right, sir. You're skipper; I'm mate. It's you to give orders, me to carry them out. But I'm beginning to think that they'll have us before we get the wind. You see, it's nearly calm."

"Yes," said the skipper, "I see; and I wonder they haven't begun firing before."

He walked right aft with the mate, leaving the lads alone, with Poole looking five years older, so blank and drawn was his face. But it brightened directly, as he felt the warm grip of the young middy's hand, and heard his words.

"Oh, Poole, old chap," Fitz half whispered, after a glance round to see if they were likely to be overheard, but only to find that every seaman was either intent upon his duty or watching the enemy in expectation of a first sh.e.l.l or ball from the heavy gun. "Oh, Poole, old chap," he said again, "I am sorry--I am indeed!"

"Sorry?" said Poole quietly. "Yes; for you've all been very kind to me."

"Well, I am glad to hear you say so, for I tried to be, and the dad liked you because you were such a c.o.c.ky, plucky little chap. But there: it's no use to cry over spilt milk. I suppose it isn't spilt yet, though," he added, with a little laugh; "but the jug will be cracked directly, and away it will all go into the sea. But I say, can you swim?"

"Oh yes, I can swim. I learnt when I was a cadet."

"That's right; and if we can't get off in one of the boats you keep close alongside of me--I know the dad will like me to stick with you-- and I'll get a life-belt, or one of the buoys, and we will share it together, one to rest in it while the other swims and tows. We'll get to sh.o.r.e somehow, never fear--the whole lot of us, I expect, for the lads will stand by, I am sure."

"Yes, yes," said Fitz, glancing round over the sunlit sea. "But what about the sharks?"

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Poole involuntarily, and he changed colour.

It was just as the skipper and mate came walking sharply forward again.

"There!" cried the latter triumphantly. "What did I say?"

"Splendid!" cried the skipper. "But will it last?"

"It did yesterday. Why not to-day?" cried the mate fiercely.

For the wind had suddenly come in a sharp gust which filled the sails, making several of them snap with a loud report, laid the schooner on her beam-ends, and sent her rus.h.i.+ng through the water for some hundred yards, making it come foaming up through the scuppers in fountains, to flood the deck, before she was eased off by the man at the wheel and rose again.

But directly after the calm a.s.serted itself once more; the greater part of the sea was like a mirror, with only cat's-paws here and there; and the gunboat came pounding on as stern as fate.

"All right," said the mate cheerily; "it's coming again," and he ran to the man at the wheel.

"Stand by, my lads," cried the skipper, "ready to let go those stuns'ls.

We mustn't be taken again like that."

The men rushed to the sheets, and when the wind came again, it came to stay, striking the heavily-canva.s.sed schooner a tremendous blow, to which she only careened over, and not a drop of water came on board, for the light studding-sails were let go to begin flapping and snapping like whip-thongs until the violence of the gust had pa.s.sed; and by that time the men were busy reducing the canvas, and the schooner was flying through the water like the winning yacht in a race.

"Never say die!" cried Poole, with a laugh. "We are going faster than the gunboat now."

"Yes," replied Fitz thoughtfully; "but she has the command of the sea, and can cut us off."

"As long as her coals last," said Poole, "and they're burning them pretty fast over this. I'd give something to guess what old Burgess means to do. He's got something in his head that I don't believe my father knows."

"Oh, he'd be sure to know," said Fitz, whose hopes were rising fast, his sympathies being entirely now with those who had proved such friends.

"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Old Burgess can be as mute as a fish when he likes, and there's nothing pleases him better than taking people by surprise."

"But what can he do more than race right away?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Burnett, old chap. It's no use for him to think of racing right away. What he'll do is this. I have said something of the kind to you before. He knows this coast just like his ABC, the bays and rivers and backwaters and crannies all amongst the rocks. He's spent days and days out in a boat sounding and making rough charts; and what he'll do, I feel certain, is this--make for some pa.s.sage in amongst the rocks where he can take the little _Teal_, run right in where the gunboat dare not come, and stay there till she's tired out."

"But then they'll sink us with their gun."

"Oh no; he'll get her right into shelter where she can't be seen."

"Then the gunboat captain will send after us with his armed boats and board us where we lie."

"Let him," said Poole grimly. "That's just what old Burgess and all the lads would like. Mr Don what's-his-name and his men would find they had such a hedgehog to tackle that they'd soon go back again faster than they came."

"Do you think your father would do that?" said Fitz, after a glance aft, to note that they were leaving the gunboat steadily behind.

"Why, of course," cried Poole. "But it's resisting a man-of-war."

"Well, what of that? We didn't boggle about doing it with one of the Queen's s.h.i.+ps, so you don't suppose that dad would make much bones about refusing to strike to a mongrel Spaniard like that?"

Fitz was silent, and somehow then in a whirl of exciting thoughts it did not seem so very serious a thing, but brought up pa.s.sages he had read in old naval books of cutting-out expeditions and brave fightings against heavy odds. And then as they went flying through the water the exhilaration of the chase took up all his attention, and the conversation dropped out of his mental sight, for it lasted hours, and during all that time the _Teal_ skimmed along, following out her old tactics close to a lovely surf-beaten sh.o.r.e, pa.s.sing bluff and valley openings where there were evidently streams pouring out from the mountains to discolour the silver sea, and offering, as the middy thought, endless havens of refuge, till about the hottest part of the day, when the pitch seemed to be seething in the seams. All at once the captain, after a short conversation with his mate, went forward with a couple of men, and Burgess went himself to take the wheel. "Now then,"

said Poole, "what did I tell you?"

"Do you think we are going to turn in here?"

"That's just what I do think. Here, do you want a job?"

"Yes--no--of course--What do you want me to do?"

"Go and tell the Camel to get the oiliest breakfast he can all ready, for we are half-starved."

"Don't talk nonsense!" cried Fitz angrily. "What do you mean?"

"Mean? Why, look! Old Grumbo's running us right in for the line of surf below that bluff. There's an opening there, I'll be bound. Look at the coloured water too. There must be a good-sized river coming down from somewhere. Oh, the old fox! He knows what he's about. There's one of his holes in there, and the hunt is nearly up. I mean, the little _Teal_ is going in to find her nest."

"Well, I hope you are right," said Fitz quietly; and then he stood watching while the little schooner seemed as if being steered to certain destruction, but only to glide by the threatened danger into a wide opening hidden heretofore, and where the rocks ran up, jungle-covered, forming the sides of a lovely valley whose limits were hidden from the deck.

At that moment the middy became aware of the fact that one of the men was busy with the skipper heaving the lead and shouting the soundings loud enough for the mate to hear, while with educated ear Fitz listened and grasped the fact how dangerously the water shoaled, till it seemed at last that the next minute they must run aground.

For a few minutes it was as though something was clutching at the boy's throat, making his breath come hot and fast; and he glanced back to see where the gunboat was, but looked in vain, for a side of the valley rose like a towering wall between, and on glancing in the other direction there was another stupendous wall running up to mountain height, and all of gorgeous greens.

The next minute, when he looked forward, feeling that at any moment he might have to swim, the voice of the man with the lead-line seemed to ring out louder and more clear, announcing fathoms, as a short time before he had shouted feet.

There was a curious stillness too reigning around. The roar of surf upon the rocky sh.o.r.e was gone; the wind had dropped; and the _Teal_ was gliding slowly up the grand natural sanctuary into which she had been steered, while the lad awakened to the fact that they had entered a rus.h.i.+ng stream, and as the feeling gained ground of all this being unreal, their safety being, as it were, a dream, he was brought back to the bare matter-of-fact by hearing an order given, the anchor descending with a splash, and Poole bringing his hand down sharply upon his shoulder, to cry exultantly--

"There, old chap; what did I say!"

CHAPTER FORTY.