"Aye, sir."
"Has it crossed your mind that the captain who advised me to take this course might have betrayed us?"
"It's been deep within my mind, but I've not confessed it until now."
"If ye live, and if ye can, establish the truth of it. If it be true, which God forbid, do all ye can that lawful punishment may be visited upon him."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Now mark me well. The reason I engaged a ship so greatly stronger was I could not bear for the Vindictive to fall into her hands, and be made a pirate, and prey upon American vessels and other Christian ships while we wore chains. But maybe I shouldn't have done it. I'll not know until I stand before the judgment seat of God."
"Right or wrong, we bless you for it, Cap'n," Ezra Owens said when I could not speak.
Then our talk was briefly arrested. In the belief that all our men were dead or had fled the battle and our guns silenced, the pirate captain had ordered his longboat launched. Into it had dropped thirty or so of his turbaned crew, who now were making toward us. They did not know that our signal gun, a short four-pounder light as a carronade, was shotted and primed.
Enoch Sutler wormed across the deck with a lighted match in his hand, Sam Hopkins and Charley Jervis crept from their cubbies to join him, and then 'Giny Jim, who had swabbed out guns and passed powder and shot throughout the battle, crawled along the scupper and lent them his strong black hands. Prone under the gunnels, they somehow moved the carriage and depressed the muzzle. When the pirate's longboat had approached within two cables' lengths, Enoch found his aim and brought his match to touchhole.
No cannon shot ever sped more true. The boat heaved up from the water as though struck by the flukes of a whale and broke into countless pieces. Now there were only black dots, strangely like a flock of ducks, to mark the spot, and these swiftly scattered or disappeared.
There came a passing glint into Captain Phillips's eyes. Ezra Owens flushed and nodded to himself, as though a job were finished, some great account closed.
"Mr. Whitman, I'll leave ye the ship—to be her captain and her owner, for she's mine to dispose of as I see fit—and with her I leave ye a cruel decision to make. I can't make it for ye, for if I did what my heart prompts, 'twould not be fair to ye few remaining because I'm nigh to death and have naught to lose. It's whether to blow her up, so she can die in honor and not be sullied by falling into pirates' hands. By using a long fuse, ye few who are left can swim clear—ye good swimmers can help the poor ones—but I fear the pirates will not give you even a slave's chance, but take a cruel revenge."
Before I could answer, grapeshot burst three times over the deck. Two of the four gunners—big 'Giny Jim and little Enoch Sutler-continued to make for their cubbies. The other two, Sam Hopkins and Charley Jervis, stopped and lay still. A dark red puddle under them became a swiftly spreading pool.
"We'll sink her and swim clear, Cap'n Phillips," I told him in the stillness.
"I count it for the good of God and man. Now I'll go off watch and to sleep."
We left him on his quarter-deck, for that was where he belonged when the ship went down, as his soul would bid us if it could speak. The four of us who remained alive made our way to our magazine. Swift moments later we had bent six feet of fuse to a fifty-pound cask of powder, lighted its end, and crept back to the deck. I wished we could use a longer fuse and hide the cask, so that the ship would be swarming with rats when fire and powder met, but there was no surety they would not find the set and foil our last great stroke. Dropping overside, we joined hands.
When we had swum a cable's length from the ship, we slowed our pace and kept a close watch behind us. So it came to pass we saw the first red burst of the explosion. The beautiful ship seemed bathed in crimson flame a good second before the thunder reached our ears, and by then the billowing smoke concealed her dissolution. What I thought was her wheel rocketed into the air, stopped, then fell with increasing speed. The smoke drifted away. Nothing was left but scattered flotsam a-rock on the gentle waves.
"I'll tell you a good game," said Ezra Owens. "Let's all get a load of air and dive as deep as we can before we take in water. The man who drowns shallowest is a lousy lubber."
"No, I'll play every chance for life and want all of you with me."
"We've taken a good toll of the dirty dogs. We've better than played even when you count heads. Why let 'em sell us into slavery to live and die at their mercy—all who're left of the Vindictive's company, us four Americans?"
For a few seconds, my heart yearning for death, I almost yielded. Then Enoch Sutler—Sparrow—the smallest man of our great company, spoke strangely.
"Who'd remember her name?"
"I spent ten years in prison, and this'll be longer and harder," Ezra Owens went on, not understanding what Enoch had said. "We sailed 'neath the flag of freedom, so let's go free."
"Stay with us, Ezra, to the last," I said.
"I'm sorry I can't oblige you."
Jerking free from Jim's hand, he dived under the waves and instantly disappeared.
We three remaining looked toward the pirate. A boat manned by a score of Mussulmen was making toward us.
BOOK TWO
IN SLAVERY
CHAPTER 8
The Crucible
We three survivors of the Vindictive's company had lost too much too suddenly to feel any great concern over what remained. We looked at the approaching boat with vague fear and dulled interest. The savage shouts of its rowers rang hollow in our ears and we stared blankly at dark bearded faces and fantastic raiment and belts stuffed with pistols and knives. The officer standing in the bow, of more gorgeous dress than the others, brandished a scimitar as though intending to hack us to death in the water, but my heart kept its slow, cold beat.
Yet by coming aware of the lethargy, I could try to emerge from it. It was necessary that I make a hard try—instinct told me that—because our stunned condition greatly increased our danger. I heard myself giving an order in low tones.
"Obey their commands. Don't either of you show any defiance. If they tell you to kiss their dirty feet, do it. It won't hurt us, and remember, it's for our mates."
Enoch gave a little nod. Jim turned wide eyes into mine. "Our mates is all gone," he said. "What do you mean, please, suh?"
I racked my brain to answer. "Their murderers must get their just deserts."
It sounded flat and queer, but Jim's stroke changed a little, as though from a different set of his brawny shoulders.
As the boat came nigh, the crew's shouting died down and the officer's gestures became less ferocious. Apparently they were overcome with curiosity. After being searched for weapons, we were allowed to sit on a center thwart.
A few minutes later we were climbing a Jacob's-ladder to the pirate's upper deck. Some of the Tripolitans drew knives as the officer led us through the swarm; others scowled and made faces; most of them watched quietly. When we came to the break of the quarterdeck, one of the crew thrust us roughly into line. A richly dressed man, whose scimitar hilt sparkled with jewels, was standing by the lee rail watching the boat being hoisted aboard; when the job was done, he turned to look at us. By now my heavy eyes had come wide awake, and I saw him sharply.
He was a renegade from the West, several of whom had become reis under the Barbary kings. I guessed at once that the English threats shouted down to us during the battle had come from his bearded lips, spoken in his native tongue. He was about forty, tall, well-formed, of feature indicative of aristocratic lineage; and although he might be an Englishman, from the cut of his jib I judged him an American. If so, he was no better than Simon Gurty. If he did not prance and howl about the stakes where his countrymen burned, the sneer on his sharky mouth and the snaky brilliance of his eyes denied human mercy and betokened wickedness as great as Simon Gurty's and evil perhaps more deep.