"Let him, then," I replied. "In the meantime, we have work to do."
Turning to Blue I said, "What think you of Pike?"
"A true man, say I, and I have known him these twenty years, boy and man. If he has not flown the white flag it was because he could not."
The wind was growing colder. Whitecaps showed themselves, cresting each wave.
The tops of the pines bent before the wind, and I did not envy the captain, hanging on high.
The two ships lay off the shore, almost side by side. We climbed into a ship's boat and pushed off. Pistol poised, I watched the rail of the pirated ship and saw no movement.
There was a rope ladder over the side. As we drew up we made fast to the bottom of it and I climbed swiftly and swung over the rail.
A faint creak warned me. A door stood partly open. The ship moved gently upon the water, but the door did not swing.
Blue hit the deck behind me, Captain Hanberry a moment later. "The door," I whispered. "There's somebody back of the door."
Turning sharply as if to the ladder to the afterdeck, I wheeled quickly as I reached it, grasped the latch, and jerked the door open.
A man sprawled upon the deck, then started to rise, "Get up if you're friendly,"
I told him, and shifting the pistol to my left hand, not wishing to waste a shot on so vulnerable a target, I drew my blade.
He got to his feet slowly, a thick-lipped man with blue eyes and a florid face.
"I be one of the crew," he said, "Cap'n Hanberry will speak for me."
"He is that," said Hanberry, "and a good man, too. Where are the others, Rob?"
"Below decks," he said, "workin' theirselves free. I was the first. I come above decks to see how the wind blew. There be two men in the aftercabin, Cap'n, scoffing an' drinkin'. There be another for'rd, I'm thinkin'."
"I'll take the one for'rd," Blue said.
He left me, moving swiftly along the deck, and I stepped into the after passage, which was a short one, with a door to right and left, and the main cabin straight aft. I walked on, opened the door, and stepped in.
There sat a man with his feet on the table, ripped back in a chair. He suddenly slammed his feet to the floor and I shot him as he reached for a pistol.
The ball took him fairly in the chest as he started to rise, and I turned swiftly as a second man heaved a bottle. Dodging the bottle I sprang past the table. He came up, cutlass in hand. Then he looked across his blade at me and suddenly threw his weapon down.
"No," he said, "I'll be damned if I do! I'll not fight for Duval. I'll not risk my neck."
"Then out upon the deck, man, and take that with you." I indicated the body.
"There's more outside."
Flemish galleon she was, the forem'st stepped forward of the forecastle as on most galleons, decks narrower than her sides because of the Danish tax, which charged according to the width of the deck. A good, solid vessel which I liked not so well as the fluyt, but almost as much.
Her topm'sts had been taken down so she'd not show above the trees and could be looted in security. She carried thirty guns, and how she had been taken I could not guess, for the pirate vessel opposite carried only twelve, although obviously a fast sailer.
From behind the mainm'st I looked over at the pirate vessel, scarcely a cable's length off. She looked dark and sullen, low upon the water as if crouched to spring. There was no sign of Pike, nor of any of the others, nor was there movement upon the shore opposite.
I turned upon Hanberry. "How is it to be, Captain? Do you follow my lead in what happens now? Or, when your men are free once more, will you leave us?"
He flushed somewhat. "Do you think me ungrateful? We shall carry on, although my men are not schooled in fighting."
"If they trade in these waters, they'd better be," I replied.
Beyond the pirate ship the pines were a dark huddle against the white of the sand-a thicker patch and deeper than those we'd come through to capture Duval.
Was that where Pike waited? Was the watch kept so well he dare not attempt an attack?
Well, then. If we could attract the attention of those aboard the pirate craft, then he might have his chance.
"Open the ports," I said, "and run out your guns. First, make sure they are charged."
"You'd fight here?" Hanberry's voice shook a little. "In this cove?"
"Why not? At such close quarters both ships will be battered to kindling, and they know it. And we've fifteen guns to their six. Charge every gun, six with chain and grapeshot to clear the decks, nine with heavy shot. Four to aim at the gun deck, five at their waterline."
Hanberry's face was pale, but as his men streamed on deck, he gave the order.
They rushed to the gun deck and their guns.
"What's her name, Captain? I cannot see it from here."
"The Haydn."
"Ahoy, Haydn!" I called. "Surrender at once or be blown out of the water!"
There was a long moment of silence. Then a voice called out, "Who speaks? Where is Captain Duval?"
"Barnabas Sackett is the name, and your Duval hangs from the pine yonder, where you will hang also unless you give up the ship."
A man stepped into the rigging in plain sight. "I'll see you in hell first!" he shouted. "We took your ship once and we'll do it again!"
There was no sign of Pike.
"Is that what you all say?" My voice carried easily across the narrow gap between the vessels. "If you don't want to die for the man who spoke, then throw him into the water. If he isn't in the water by the time I count three-!"
From over the bulwark I could see crouching men running to man the guns.
"Just a minute here," he called. "Let's talk this over!"
"Fire!" I replied.
The galleon jolted sharply with the concussion and the broadside's recoil rolled us over, then back. Bracing myself, hand gripping a stay, I peered through the billowing smoke.
"Load numbers three, four, and five with grape," I ordered, "and stand by to fire."
Hanberry rushed to me. "They'd have surrendered!" he shouted angrily. "They were ready to surrender!"
"They were preparing to fire," I replied shortly, "while he talked."
A man ran forward and dove into the water, then two more.
As the smoke lifted somewhat we could see that the mainm'st was down, that portions of the rigging had been carried away, and that great, gaping holes had been ripped in the gundeck. Five holes at the waterline were pouring water into the hold.
"Damn you!" Hanberry shouted. "Damn you for a scoundrel! They'd have surrendered!"
Pike and other men were rushing from the pines toward the shore. Beyond our view, and along the shore, there was a sudden clash of arms, the sound of guns and yells.
As suddenly as they began, the sounds ceased. Then moments later, a boat appeared around the stern of the Haydn.
Turning to Hanberry, I covered him with a pistol. "I will take your weapons, Captain," I said politely. "After this is over they will be returned."
"I'll be damned if you do!" he said.
"Would you rather be aloft there?" I asked mildly.
Swearing, he handed over a pistol and his sword. It was a gentleman's dress sword, hardly what one needed in such a place as this. Still, it was a weapon.
Pike and the others had reached our deck. "Sorry for the delay, Captain Sackett, but they had a party on the beach there, and we'd have lost men trying it. As you wished, I waited."
There was still no sign of the fluyt. "Gather all the weapons," I said. "Do what you can for the wounded."
They worked swiftly. Turning to look about me at the galleon, I could see no evidence of damage. Duval and his men seemed to have taken the Flemish ship without a struggle.
The Haydn was listing heavily to the starboard.