Suddenly both frigates opened fire, and the great cannon-balls ripped up the sea all round us.
"They'll sink us, sure," said one of the smugglers with a grin.
The men all laughed, and I laughed too; we were all so very much interested in what was going to happen. The guns fired steadily one after the other in a long rolling roar. The men laughed at each shot.
"They couldn't hit the sea," they said derisively. "The navy gunners are no use at all."
"No," said Marah, "they're not. But if they keep their course another half-minute they'll be on the sunk reef, and a lot of 'em'll be drowned. I wonder will the old Laocoon take a hint."
"Give 'em the pennant," said Gateo.
"Ay, give it 'em," said half-a-dozen others. "Don't let 'em wreck."
Marah opened the flag-locker, and took out a blue pennant (it had a white ball in the middle of it), which he hoisted to his main truck. "Let her go off," he cried to the helmsman.
For just a moment we lay broadside on to the frigate, a fair target for her guns, so that she could see the pennant blowing out clear.
"You see, Jim?" asked Marah. "That pennant means 'You are standing in to danger.' Now we will luff again."
"I don't think they saw it, guv'nor," said one of the sailors as another shot flew over us. "They'll have to send below to get their glasses, those blind navy jokers."
"Off," said Marah, quickly; and again we lay broadside on, tumbling in the swell, shipping heavy sprays.
This time they saw it, for the Laocoon's helm was put down, her great sails shivered and threshed, and she stood off on the other tack. As she stood away we saw an officer leap on to the taffrail, holding on by the mizen backstays. "Tar my wig," said Marah, "if he isn't bowing to us!"
Sure enough the officer took off his hat to us and bowed gracefully.
"Polite young man," said Marah. "We will give them the other pennant." Another flag, a red pennant, was hoisted in place of the blue. "Wishing you a pleasant voyage," said Marah. "Now luff, my sons. That longboat will be on to us."
Indeed, the longboat had crept to within six hundred yards of us; it was time we were moving, though the guns were no longer firing on us from the ships.
"Mind your helm, boys," said Marah as he went forward to the bows. "I've got to con you through a lot of bad rocks. You'll have to steer small or die."
CHAPTER XII.
BLACK POOL BAY
I shall not describe our passage through the Green Stones to Kermorvan, but in nightmares it comes back to me. We seemed to wander in blind avenues, hedged in by seas, and broken water, awful with the menace of death. For five or six hours we dodged among rocks and reefs, wet with the spray that broke upon them and sick at heart at the sight of the whirlpools and eddies. I think that they are called the Green Stones because the seas break over them in bright green heaps. Here and there among them the tide seized us and swept us along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round. How often we were near our deaths I cannot think, but time and time again the backwash of a breaker came over our rail in a green mass. When we sailed into Kermorvan I was only half conscious from the cold and wet. I just remember some one helping me up some steps with seaweed on them.
We stayed in Kermorvan for a week or more, waiting for our cargo of brandy, silk, and tobacco, and for letters and papers addressed to the French war-prisoners in the huge prison on Dartmoor.
I was very unhappy in Kermorvan, thinking of home. It would have been less dismal had I had more to do, but I was unoccupied and a prisoner, in charge of an old French woman, who spoke little English, so that time passed slowly indeed. At last we set sail up the coast, hugging the French shore, touching at little ports for more cargo till we came to Cartaret. Here a French gentleman (he was a military spy) came aboard us, and then we waited two or three days for a fair wind. At last the wind drew to the east, and we spread all sail for home on a wild morning when the fishermen were unable to keep the sea.
At dusk we were so near to home that I could see the Start and the whole well-known coast from Salcombe to Dartmoor. In fact I had plenty of time to see it, for we doused our sails several miles out to sea, and lay tossing in the storm to a sea-anchor, waiting for the short summer night to fall. When it grew dark enough (of course, in that time of year, it is never very dark even in a storm) we stole in, mile by mile, to somewhere off Flushing, where we showed a light. We showed it three times from the bow, and at the last showing a red light gleamed from Flushing Church. That was the signal to tell us that all was safe, so then we sailed into Black Pool Bay, where the breakers were beating fiercely in trampling ranks.
There were about a dozen men gathered together on the beach. We sailed right in, till we were within ten yards of the sands, and there we moored the lugger by the head and stern, so that her freight could be discharged. The men on the beach waded out through the surf (though it took them up to the armpits), and the men in the lugger passed the kegs and boxes to them. Waves which were unusually big would knock down the men in the water, burden and all, and then there would be laughter from all hands, and grumbles from the victim. I never saw men work harder. The freight was all flung out and landed and packed in half an hour. It passed out in a continual stream from both sides of the boat; everybody working like a person possessed. And when the lugger was nearly free of cargo, and the string of workers in the water was broken on the port side, it occurred to me that I had a chance of escape. It flashed into my mind that it was dark, that no one in the lugger was watching me, that the set of the tide would drive me ashore (I was not a good swimmer, but I knew that in five yards I should be able to touch bottom), and that in another two hours, or less, I should be in bed at home, with all my troubles at an end.
When I thought of escaping, I was standing alone at the stern. A lot of the boat's crew were in the water, going ashore to "run" the cargo, on horseback, to the wilds of Dartmoor. The others were crowded at the bow, watching them go, or watching the men upon the beach, moving here and there by torchlight, packing the kegs on the horses' backs. It was a wild scene. The wind blew the torches into great red fiery banners; the waves hissed and spumed, and glimmered into brightness; you could see the horses shying, and the men hurrying to and fro; and now and then some one would cry out, and then a horse would whinny. All the time there was a good deal of unnecessary talk and babble; the voices and laughter of the seamen came in bursts as the wind lulled. Every now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the sea without a splash.
