On Circe's being hit, Captain Cummins had ordered her ensign to be run up and the women to go below; then he had a round fired from her stern-chaser in reply. It failed to reach its mark, but now she had shown her intention to resist her attacker also snowed her colours. To the astonishment of the little group on the Circe's poop they proved to be a white flag embroidered with the golden Fleur-de-lys of Royalist France.
Charles lowered the spy-glass through which he had been looking, and remarked: "How very strange. The French Monarchy has been dead these two years past Should she catch us there is no port to which she could take us without being caught herself, and by her bitterest enemies, the Republicans."
Roger's face had suddenly taken on a strained look, as he replied: "Then she cannot be a privateer. Her Captain must be a free-lance— some Frenchman ruined by the revolution who has become a lawless rover, and is out to plunder, sink and kill. God help us if we fall into his hands. This means we have no option but to fight him to the last"
chapter v
"FOR THOSE IN PERIL ON THE SEA"
Very anxiously now Roger and Charles discussed the evil fate which, in the shape of a graceful white-winged ship, had come out of the morning to menace them.
As the barque tacked in pursuit it could be seen that she had eight guns on either side, in addition to the long-gun in her bow and two carronades mounted on her poop. She was still at extreme range, so could not yet use her main armament; but should she succeed in closing sufficiently to do so it was clear that the Circe would be hopelessly outgunned. Even if they fought on, the enemy's cannon would cause such havoc among their masts and sailing gear that they would be hove-to and become vulnerable to boarding. So, unless some unexpected turn of events occurred, their chance of escaping seemed slender; and to be captured by a pirate was a terrifying thing to contemplate.
Half a century earlier buccaneers had still sailed the waters of the Spanish Main with comparative immunity, but the navies of England, France, Holland and Spain had since combined to put them down, or regularize their depredations by converting them into licensed privateers; so their numbers had greatly decreased and to have fallen in with one was a piece of exceptional ill-fortune.
To be taken by a privateer would have been bad enough, as that would have meant being robbed of all but the clothes they stood up in, then having to kick their heels, perhaps for months, in far from comfortable quarters while they arranged to buy their freedom with heavy drafts on London. But to fall into the hands of a sea-rover who owed allegiance to no government might prove infinitely worse.
Such pirate captains were, almost without exception, debased and illiterate men who treated their captives with ruthless savagery. The fact that they were outlaws debarred them from all communication with the civilized world; so they had no means of securing ransoms for their prisoners. Instead they either killed the men or marooned them on some desolate islet, and having raped their choice among the women gave them over to become the common property of the crew until death during some drunken scrimmage, or from disease, released them from their hideous bondage.
It was the thought of their wives, young Clarissa, and Jenny and Nell being handed on from one filthy ruffian to another which made the palms of Charles's hands go damp and Roger conscious of a horrid empty feeling in the pit of his stomach; although each endeavoured to reassure the other.
They argued that as the barque carried the flag of Royalist France the odds were all on her Captain being a man of gentle birth. If so, however criminal the life to which he had taken, his natural instinct would be to treat the women chivalrously; and, as one who had been
brought up to put faith in the word of one gentleman given to another, he might be persuaded to put them all ashore on their promise to arrange for a large sum to be made available at some port where he could collect it without danger.
Yet these optimistic speculations were offset by grave misgivings, as they were aware that there were definite limits to the authority wielded by pirate captains. Their crews were the scum of the seven seas, desperate and vicious men, banded together in free association, and willing to obey their leaders only so long as doing so seemed likely to serve their own ends. Discipline could be maintained aboard such ships only by a captain shooting out of hand any man who challenged his authority, and provided the bulk of the crew thought the action for the common good, that was the end of the matter; but if a majority got the idea that their captain was either falling off as a leader, or cheating them out of their full share of plunder, it was they who murdered him.
Governing the sharing out of plunder, and the enjoyment of captured women, they had rules well established by tradition, and the disturbing thought was the unlikelihood that they would be willing to forgo them. From that, it followed that even if this French Royalist sea-rover's instinct was to protect his prisoners, there seemed little chance that he would give his men just grounds for combining against him by doing so, if that entailed the risk of stirring up a mutiny which might prove beyond his powers to suppress.
Grimly, although they did not say so to one another, the two friends faced the fact that unless Circe could hold her lead until nightfall, then throw off her pursuer during the hours of darkness, both her passengers and crew would all be wishing that they had been quietly drowned some weeks back off the coast of Portugal.
Meanwhile both ships had exchanged another shot, neither of which scored a hit; but now the Frenchman fired a sixth. It landed plumb on the poop not a yard from the mizenmast before bouncing overboard, and was a clear enough indication that she was gradually creeping up on them.
Its arrival coincided with the striking of eight-bells; so although the whole crew was standing by, the watch was automatically changed. The Dutch First Mate took over from the Second, who had been on duty for the past four hours, and Ephraim Bloggs relieved the man at the wheel.
The north-east corner of Santo Domingo could now be made out distinctly as a dark irregular patch on the horizon, some twenty-five miles away. At the speed they were making Captain Cummins estimated that they should round it about three o'clock, and he said that when they did the wind, for a time at least, would be more favourable to him; but Roger now doubted if they could get that far before the Frenchman had come up close enough to fire a broadside and disable them.
Frantically he cast about in his mind for a means of saving the women. He was willing enough to play his part in fighting the ship, but no uncertainties troubled his well-balanced mind about where his first loyalty lay. As a passenger he was under no obligation to stand by Captain Cummins to the end, and he decided that he must abandon him if that would give a better chance to get his own party away. Taking Charles aside, he said to him in a low voice:
"Unless the Frenchman has the luck to shoot away one of our masts, we still have an hour or two in which to make preparations against the worst."
Charles gave him a desperately worried look. "I take it you have in mind the provisioning of some hiding-place for our ladies and their maids. I greatly doubt though if they could remain undiscovered till a chance arises for them to get ashore. Any prize crew that is put aboard will ransack the ship from stem to stern m search of valuables."
"That apart"; Roger replied, "I fear that a number of our own crew are untrustworthy and may go over to the pirates. In any case some of them will give it away that there are women aboard, and under threats betray their hiding-place. No; unless you have a better plan, mine is that we should remain aboard as long as there seems a chance that Circe's resistance may prove successful; but should ~ capture seem inevitable we will get the women into one of the boats and make off in it."