The Ghost Ship/Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Four. A Free Fight.

But hardly had the colonel given vent to his despairing exclamation, expressive alike of his own dismay and ours also, when the bitter feeling of disappointment at being too late, that had for the moment weighed down upon us, crushing our enthusiasm, was suddenly banished and the hearts of all filled with renewed hope and fierce determination.

We were not too late after all!

No.

For as we gazed in blank surprise at the howling mob of Haytians, who appeared to have gained complete possession of the Saint Pierre, and were dancing about and gesticulating in their wild, devilish fashion, calling out to us with wild derisive cries, as if mocking at our efforts to save those whom they had already butchered, a bright flame of fire flashed out from the skylight hatch of the doomed ship, followed by the sharp crack of a revolver; and at the same instant one of the half-naked devils massed on the poop leaped into the air and then fell on his face flat on the deck, uttering a yell of agony as he writhed his limbs in the throes of death.

An exulting cheer broke from all of us in the Star of the North on seeing this, every man gripping his weapon tightly, and setting his teeth hard, ready for action, as the two vessels sidled up nearer and nearer.

Then if word were wanted to spur us on, the skipper gave that word with a vengeance!

“By George! my lads, we’re in time yet to save the child and our other white comrades!” he cried out loudly, at the same time jumping into the mizzen rigging, where he hung on the shrouds with one hand, while in the other he held a cutlass which he had hastily clutched up, whirling it round his lionlike old grey head. “See, men, they’ve retreated to the cabin below, where they’re fighting for their lives to the last. Tumble up, my lads, and save them, like the British sailors that you are! Boarders, away!”

As he said this, Mr Fosset, who was still on the bridge conning the old barquey, having at once ported our helm, on the skipper holding up his cutlass, taking this for a signal, we came broadside-on, slap against the hull of the other ship with a jolt that shook her down to her very kelson, rolling a lot of the darkies, who were grouped aft, off their legs like so many ninepins. At the same moment, before the two craft had time to glide apart, both having way upon them, old Masters forward, and Parrell, the quartermaster, who was stationed in the waist of our vessel, just under the break of the poop, hooked on grapnels, with hawsers attached, to the weather rigging of the Saint Pierre; and ere the skipper’s rallying cry and our answering cheer had died away, drowned by the voice of our escaping steam rushing up the funnels on the engines coming to a stop, now that their duty for the nonce was done, there we were moored hard and fast together, alongside the whilom dreaded “ghost-ship!”

Then with another wild hurrah that made the ringbolts in the deck jingle, and swamped the sound of the rushing steam and everything, the men, closing up behind the skipper, who led us so gallantly over the side, far in advance, brave-hearted old sea dog that he was, bounded across the intervening bulwarks, and were the next instant engaged in all the maddening excitement of a hand-to-hand tussle with the black villains, pistol shot, sword cut and pike thrust coming in turn into play, amid a babel of hoarse shouts of rage and cheers and savage yells—mingled with the swish of blows from capstan bars, the loud reports of revolvers fired off at close range and the heavy thud of falling bodies as they tumbled headlong on the deck ever and anon, accompanied by some cry of agony or groan of pain too deep for utterance.

Aye, it was a discord of devilry that must have appeared a veritable pandemonium to the spirits of the air, were any such looking down on the wrathful, sanguinary scene from the clear blue heavens above, all radiant now with a golden glow that came from the west, where the declining sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon!

“Fuaghaballah, may the divvle take the hindmost!” cried Garry O’Neil, leaping after the skipper on to the poop of the Saint Pierre, a revolver in his right fist and a cutlass in his left, laying about him with a will amongst the mass of infuriated negroes who tried to resist his rush, clutching at his legs and arms in vain, for he seemed bewitched. “Come on wid ye, me darlints, an’ let us make mincemate of ’em, faith!”

I followed in his wake, but a crowd of our men, some of whom had served in the navy and were accustomed to the work, pushed me on one side, going into the thick of the fight themselves, and all was such a jumble of confusion that I hardly knew where I was until “a pretty tidy tap on the top of my head,” as Garry would have said, brought back my recollection in a very effective manner, when I found myself right in front of an extremely ugly-looking negro, whose appearance was not improved by a slice having been taken off the side of his face, and from which blood was streaming down all over his black body, and that destitute of clothing.

I noticed that this gentleman had a long piece of wood like a boat stretcher in his hands, with which he had evidently given me the gentle reminder I have mentioned, being brought to this conclusion by the fact that the rascal had it raised ready to deal another blow.

Putting up my arm instinctively to ward off the impending stroke that I saw coming, I cocked and levelled my revolver at him in an instant.

Before I could fire, however, some one behind me shoved me aside again, and crash came a heavy capstan bar down upon the negro’s skull, which I heard crack like a walnut shell as he dropped dead on his face.

“Golly, Mass’ Hald’n,” exclaimed Accra Prout, our stalwart mulatto cook, whose sinuous arm had thus incontinently settled the dispute between my sable opponent and myself. “I’se guess dis chile gib dat black debble goss, noh ow!”

But ere I could say a word to him for his timely aid, Accra Prout had bounded onward in front, and I then saw he was following Colonel Vereker, who had managed somehow or other, in spite of his lameness, to gain the deck of his old ship along with the rest of us.

Crack, crack, crack, went his revolver with venomous iteration from the other side of the vessel, where he was standing by the bulwarks, close to the hatchway of the companion-ladder leading to the cabin below, which he was apparently endeavouring to reach, while a crowd of Haytians barred his further progress towards those imprisoned in the cabin, whom they thus prevented his releasing, a fresh foe starting up for every one he disposed of, and a rough and terrible fight going on all round him all the time.

“’Top a minnit, Mass’ V’reker!” shouted Accra Prout, darting into the middle of the throng, clearing a pathway for himself with the capstan bar. “I’se here; I’se come help you soon!”

“A thousand devils!” hissed a tall black near by—a man with a large, crinkly, ink-black moustache, and certainly with the most satanic visage I had ever beheld before. “A thousand devils!” repeated he, giving him a thrust with a large knife that pierced poor Accra’s arm, and making him drop the capstan bar. “Take care of yourself—beast!”

A cry from the colonel told me who this was.

“Ah, villain, villain!” he sang out, looking him full in the face and grinding his teeth and trying with all his might, but vainly, to get at him through the press of struggling figures by whom he was surrounded. “I’ve been looking for you, Marquis des Coupgorges!”

The black scoundrel gave out a shrill laugh like that of a hyena, as Colonel Vereker had described it to us when telling his yarn.

“Pardon me, sir, I am here,” he yelled out mockingly. “I am here. I do not run away like your white trash! Why don’t you come and fight me? Bah! I spit on you, my fine plantation colonel. When I get at you I will serve you just as I did your sly slave the other day, whom you sent to betray us, though you, yourself, were too great a coward to come amongst us, yes, to come amongst us yourself. Aha! colonel.”

He said this in plain English, which language he spoke as fluently as he did French, the native language of Hayti, uttering his abusive threats loud enough for us to hear every syllable; but though I aimed at him while he was speaking twice point blank, and my revolver spoke out quite as loudly as he, while the colonel likewise shot at him and the skipper made a slash in his direction with his cutlass, the miscreant escaped all our attacks without a single wound, dodging away from us amongst his dusky compatriots, who were now pretty thickly mixed up with our men in a fierce mêlée, at the further end of the poop, overlooking the waist below.

In the midst of this awful scrimmage there came a wild rush aft of all the remaining blacks who had been engaged with some of the hands amidships, pursued by our second boarding party, led by Mr Fosset and Stoddart, who had made their way over the bows and cleared the fo’c’s’le, fighting onward step by step along the upper deck; and hemmed in fast thus, between two fires, the black desperadoes made a last stand, refusing to surrender, or throw down their arms in spite of all promises of quarter on our part.

All of them could see for themselves how completely overmatched they were, and must have known the utter uselessness of attempting any further resistance to us; but the mutineers of the negro portion of the Saint Pierre’s crew, who were now in the majority, feared to give in owing to the fact of their believing they would be ultimately hanged if taken alive after the atrocities they had committed; so being of the opinion they were bound to be killed in any case, they determined apparently, if die they must, they would die fighting.

Whatever might be their motive or conviction, I will give them the credit of being plucky, and must say that they fought bravely, though with a ferocity that was more than savage, to the bitter end, their last rally on the break of the poop being the fiercest episode of the fray, several hand-to-hand combats going on at one and the same time with hand pikes and capstan bars whirling about over the heads of those engaged, where cutlass cuts were met with knife-thrusts from the formidable long-bladed weapons the negroes carried in their hands only to sheathe them in the bodies of their white antagonists.

My brain got dizzy as I watched the mad turmoil and my blood was at fever heat, taking part in the fight too, you may be sure, whenever I saw an opening, and dealing a blow here or parrying one there, as chance arose, with the best of them, young though I was, and totally inexperienced in such matters!

It was coming near to the finish, being too warm work to continue much longer, and I think all of us had had pretty well enough of it, when, looking round for Colonel Vereker, whom I suddenly missed from among the combatants, I saw him struggling with one of the blacks in a regular rough and tumble tussle on the deck.

The two were rolling about close to the after skylight from whence we had observed the flash of the pistol shot as we approached the ship, and which the colonel had been trying to get near to ever since he boarded her, but had been prevented from reaching by one obstacle or another until now, when this negro clutched hold of him and forced him back again.

He and the Haytian were tightly locked in a deadly embrace, the negro gripping him with both arms round the body, and the colonel endeavouring to release his revolver hand, the two rolling over and over on the deck towards the rail forward.

“Ha!” muttered the colonel, who was hard pressed, through his set teeth. “Only let me get free.”

Strangely enough, the glass of the skylight above the spot where the pair were struggling was instantly shattered from within, as if in response to his muttered cry; and with a loud bark that could have been heard a mile off, a big dog burst forth from the opening, making straight for the colonel and his relentless foe.

Then there came a startled yell from the negro, who, releasing his late antagonist, staggered to his feet.

“Holy name of—” he screamed out in wild affright, but he had not time to reach the concluding word of his sentence—the name of his patron saint, no doubt—“the devil!”

For before he could get so far, giving a fierce growl, the dog at once sprang up at him, his fangs meeting in the Haytian’s throat, whereupon the latter, toppling backwards over the poop-rail, fell into the waist below, with the dog hanging on to him; and I noticed presently that both were dead, the brave animal who had come so opportunely to the rescue of the colonel, his master, being stabbed to the heart by a knife which the negro still held in his lifeless hand, while his own neck had been torn to pieces by the dog whom death could not force to relinquish his grip!

Immediately running up to the colonel, who was feebly trying to rise, his wrestle with the black having crippled his wounded leg and arm, I helped him to his feet as quickly as I could, while others clustered round to shelter us.

“Poor Ivan, true as steel in death as in life!” he faintly muttered, glancing from the break of the poop on the two bodies huddled together below, the blood of the faithful dog flowing with that of his ruthless foe into a crimson pool that was gradually extending its borders from the middle of the deck to the lee scuppers. “He has defended my little Elsie, I am sure, to the last, likewise, even as he defended me. I hope and trust my child is still safe in the cabin. Help me aft, my lad, to see; quick, quick!”

Of course I assisted him as well as I could under the circumstances, but as he limped along towards the companion-hatchway, the leader of the desperadoes, that villainous “marquis,” who I thought had met with his just deserts long since, not having seen him for some little time among the other fighters, most unexpectedly jumped from the rigging in front of the colonel and aimed a vindictive blow at him with a marline-spike.

This must have settled the colonel if it had fallen on his uncovered head. Fortunately though, dropping quickly the colonel’s arm, I fended off the blow with the revolver I held in my hand, while at the same time I gave the scoundrel a drive in the face that must have astonished his black lordship a good deal, for my clenched fist met him square on the mouth and shook his teeth, making them rattle, as well as disarranging the twist of his crinkly moustache!

He came at me with a snarl like an angry tiger, and then, hugging me tight, with his hideous black face thrust close against mine, and his muscular arms pressed tightly around my ribs, he squeezed every ounce of breath out of my body.

I thought my last hour had come.

But help came to my aid from a most unlooked-for quarter.

“Ah! you blackguard,” cried a voice that sounded dimly in my ears, my head at the time seeming to be whirling round like the arms of a windmill from the sense of suffocation and the rush of blood to the brain. “Coward! miscreant! you are here again.”

Breathless though I was, I was so surprised, and indeed frightened at the voice and accent of the speaker, which I immediately recognised, that I at once came to myself and opened wide my half-closed eyes.

Good heavens! Shall I ever forget the sight? Yes; it was Captain Alphonse, whom I had last seen only half an hour or so previously in the skipper’s cot on board the Star of the North, when Garry O’Neil said he would probably never wake to consciousness again in this life, or move out of the skipper’s state room!

Here he was though, all the same, looking like an apparition from the dead, wild, ghastly, awful, but quite sufficiently in his senses to recognise his terrible enemy, the pseudo “marquis.”

It is a scene I shall never forget, as I remarked before.

Like poor Ivan, and with equal ferocity, the Frenchman sprang at the ugly villain’s throat, the whole lot of us tumbling headlong on the deck together, which caused the wretch to release me in order to protect himself from Captain Alphonse, who, kneeling on the top of him, hammered him against the bulwarks as though trying to beat the life out of him.

Making a last desperate effort, the Haytian “marquis” gripped his antagonist round the waist as he previously gripped me, dragging him down beside him again; and then, as the two came with all their might against the side of the ship where the port flap was loose, the whole of the planking gave way, and poor Captain Alphonse, with that scoundrel the black “marquis,” crashed through the splintering wood together, falling with a heavy splash overboard into the sea beneath, going to the bottom locked in each other’s arms—a terrible ending to the terrible episode of this, their last meeting.

For the minute the colonel seemed overwhelmed with grief at this awful and sudden termination of poor Captain Alphonse’s life, and we would all sooner have seen him die unconsciously if not quietly, in his bed; but such are the ways of Providence, and we cannot control them!

But this day certainly witnessed a series of surprises, so it seemed to me, the most wonderful things happening every moment.

Colonel Vereker had dragged himself as well as he could up to where I lay on the deck, after being set free from the bearlike hug of the negro, helping me up on my legs in the same Good Samaritan way in the which I had saved him shortly before; and we were both looking over the side, talking excitedly of the dreadful catastrophe that had just happened, and wondering whether the poor captain’s body would rise to the surface again, when all of a sudden, something bright crossing the deck caught my eye like a flash of light, and I heard the sound of light and hurried footsteps.

Wheeling round hastily I was amazed at the beautiful object that met my gaze, for I saw standing there, only a pace or two off, a lovely young girl, with a profusion of long silky hair of a bright golden hue, that streamed in a tangled mass over her shoulders, and reaching down almost to her feet.

“My father, my dear father!” she exclaimed in broken and ecstatic tones, her voice sounding to me like the soft cooing of a dove, as she flew and nestled herself into the outstretched arms of the colonel, who had also turned round at her approach, some sympathetic feeling having warned him of her coming, telling him who it was even before he saw her.

“Oh, my father! my father! At last, at last!”

And then, unable to control herself longer, she burst into a passion of tears and sobs.

Colonel Vereker, on his part, was equally overcome.

“God be thanked!” cried he, raising his face to heaven, clasping her at the same time fondly to his heart and kissing her trembling lips again and again. “My darling one, my own little daughter, whom I thought I had lost for ever, but whom the good God has preserved to be the delight of my eyes again, my little one, my precious!”

For a few minutes I too had a lump in my throat, but turned aside, and then, not wishing to appear to be observing them, I left them alone and went off to another part of the ship.