For an instant Huron staggered to the enormous increase in drag upon the trailing cable, and then the whaler disintegrated in a boiling flurry of white disturbed water. Her broken planking popped to the surface and the cable freed of its wearying weight flicked high in the air like the tail of an angry lioness. Without restraint, Huron gibed fiercely, spinning once more across the wind, and this time being blown flat, her tall bare masts swinging over almost parallel to the sea's surface.
The lee rail dug deeply into the sea, and the water came aboard her in a sweeping torrent, like a bursting dam wall.
It caught Robyn and hurled her against Mungo St. John's chest; if it had not done so, she would have been carried overboard, but he caught her to him and held her as they were tumbled down the steeply canted deck and then Huron was righting herself again, the water cascading off her in silver spouts.
She wallowed helplessly, taking the gale-driven seas on her beam, her desperate rolling accentuated by the pendulum of her high bare masts, but at least that drenching wall of sea water had poured into her hull through every opening and had extinguished her fires on the instant.
Mungo St. John dragged Robyn by the wrist across the flooded deck, sloshing and slipping knee deep with loose tackle slithering and floating around them.
At the break of the poop he stopped, both of them panting for breath, their clothing and hair streaming sea water, the deck heaving and dropping crazily under them so he had to cling to the weather rail for support. He stared across at Black Joke.
The race was run. The gunboat was crowding down upon them exultantly, so close that he could see the cannon protruding from her open ports and the heads of the gunners above the bulwarks. Her challenging flag hoist still flew in her riggin& gaudy and gay as Christmas decorations.
She would be up to the wallowing clipper in minutes, long before Mungo could ever hope to get his ship sailing again.
Mungo shook the water from his sodden dark locks like a spaniel coming ashore, and he filled his lungs. Mr. O'Brien, a pair of slave cuffs here, he bellowed, and Robyn, who had never heard him raise his voice, was stunned by the volume of sound that came up out of that muscular chest. She was still dazed and confused as she felt the cold kiss of iron on her wrists.
Mungo snapped the cuff on her left wrist, took two swift turns of chain around Huron's rail and then snapped the second cuff on her right wrist. I have no doubt your friends will be delighted to see you, in the cannon's mouth, he told her, his face still set with anger, the rims of his nostrils white as bone china. He turned from her, running his fingers through his dark curls, throwing the hair back from his forehead and eyes. Mr. O'Brien, muskets and pistols to every hand. Run out the guns and load with ball, we'll change to grape as the range closes. ' The mate shouted his orders as he ran, and the crew scattered from the futile task of attempting to bring the clipper under control. They stumbled across the wave-swept deck, dodging fallen and broken tackle, hurrying to arm themselves and to man Huron's guns.
Mr. Tippoo! Mungo's voice cut through the cacophony of gale and shouted orders. Captain MungoVBring up the first deck of slaves. 'We deep-sixing them? ' Tippoo asked, for he had served before under slave captains, who, when capture by a naval vessel was imminent, would deep-six their cargo of blackbirds, drop them overboard, chains and all, and rid themselves of the most damning evidence against them. We'll chain 'em to the weather rail, Mr. Tippoo, with the woman. ' Mungo used neither Robyn's title nor her name. 'Make the limejuicer think a spell before he opens fire. ' And Tippoo let an explosive chuckle of laughter come bouncing up his throat as he bounded away on those thick bowed legs, to get the gratings off the main hatch. Sir! ' Denham's voice was incredulous, shocked. 'Sir! 'Yes, Mr. Denharn, Clinton answered him quietly, without lowering his telescope. 'I have seen it-'But, sir, that's Doctor Ballantyne-'And black slaves. ' Ferris could hold his tongue no longer. 'They're chaining them to the rail. 'What manner of man is that Yankee! 'Denham burst out again.
A damned clever one, ' Clinton answered him quietly.
He was watching the woman he had come to rescue through the glass. He could already recognize her features. Her eyes seemed too large for her deathly white face, her sodden and rumpled clothing stuck to her body.
Through a rent in her blouse he could see the pale skin of her shoulder and upper arm gleaming with a pearl- like lustre in the sunlight. Mr. Denham, Clinton went on speaking. 'Warn the crew that we will be receiving fire in about five minutes, and we will be unable to return it.'
He watched the ranks of naked black slaves still coming up on to the clipper's main deck and taking their place along the rail, their gaolers fussing about them, chivvying them into place and securing their chains. We are fortunate in having a gale of wind, so we will be exposed to fire for a short period, but warn the men to lie flat upon the deck below the bulwark.'
Black joke's fragile eggshell plating would give some protection at extreme range, but as they closed with the slave ship, he could expect even grape shot to penetrate their sides. One blessing, they would be spared the lethal flying splinters that were so much dreaded in wooden ships. I am going to lay her alongside the Yankee's stern , Clinton went on. That way she would be exposed to the clipper's broadsides while the two ships were bound to each other. 'But she stands taller than we do. I want your best men with the grappling irons, Mr. Denham. ' Huron's maindeck was ten feet higher than the gunboat's. There would be nice work ahead when they leapt the gap, and scrambled up Huron's stern with its pronounced tumble home. By God! She's running out her guns. She means to fight us after all, Denham cut in, and then, penitently, I beg your pardon, sir. ' He excused himself for the interruption and the blasphemy.
Clinton lowered the telescope. They were so close now that he no longer needed it.
The clipper had six light cannons on each side of her, mounted on the maindeck. The barrels were almost twice as long as Black joke's own heavy carronades. However, the bore of the muzzles was much smaller in diameter, and as Clinton watched, they began to train around towards him, one at a time beginning at the stern .
Even without the glass, Clinton could make out the tall lean figure in the plain jacket moving at a deceptivly leisurely pace one gun to the next, laying each of them personally gestuning at the gun crews to strain on the tackles and traverse the long cannonon to their target.
Clinton saw St. John reach the bow kgun and make a careful adjustment, working over it A few seconds longer than he had the others, and then he leapt to the clipper's bulwark and balanced there with, the assurance of an acrobat against the rudderless hull's unpredictable movements.
The scene engraved itself upon Clinton's mind, it it seemed so theatrical, like the cast of a stage production lined up at the end of the performance to receive the applause of the spectators. The file of naked black bodies, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with their arms extended in unison, like the trained *. chorus, their wrists locked to the teak rail by the slave cuffss. Then the principal, the figure of the woman, slim AM somehow delicate
