'Well,' said Jack, considering, 'Minerve, Bellone, Astree, Venus, Manche; together with Nereide and Iphigenia: that makes seven to one. But we have seen longer odds, I believe.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
'All hands unmoor ship,' said Jack. The bosun's calls wailed and twittered; the Boadiceas ran to their stations; the fife began its thin piercing tune; 'Stamp and go, stamp and go,' cried the bosun's mates; and in the midst of the familiar din of proceeding to sea Stephen turned from the rail, where he had been staring under his shading hand at the ship lying within the frigate. 'I could almost swear I had see that vessel before,' he said.
'Oh, not above a hundred times,' said Jack. 'She is the Windham. The Windham Indiaman again. This time she was outward-bound, and they took her in the Mozambique channel. Sirius very neatly retook her when she shied away from Port South-East. Did not Pym tell you?'
'Faith, we had little conversation, Captain Pyrn and I'
'No: I suppose not. But, however, Pullings snapped her up in his little schooner just as she was running under the guns of Riviere Noire: a good, seamanlike officer, Tom Pullings . . .'
'Up and down, sir,' called the bosun.
'Thick and dry,' came Jack's answer, as automatic as a response in church; and he continued' . . . and he brought her in, cracking on regardless. That was the first I knew of the affair. Let fall, there,' he cried, directing his voice upwards.
The topsails flashed out, the frigate's head swung to the north-east and steadied: she heeled, steeper and steeper as the courses, topgallants and staysails were sheeted home in smooth succession and the way came on her, the water slipping fast and faster still along her side. She shaved the cruel reef off Saint Denis, altered course two points to eastward, and setting a flying-jib she stretched for the
Ile de la Passe, making her ten knots watch after watch, her wake a straight green line of phosphorescence in the dark.
Every minute counted. Stephen's voyage had taken so little time that there was a possibility the fort had not yet surrendered, and that the Iphigenia still lay under its protection, within the reef. Every minute counted, and although sailcloth and spars were so precious they drove her through the sea as though they had a Spanish galleon in chase: with an even greater zeal indeed; so great that they raised the island before the light of day.
When he had two peaks of the Bamboo Mountain in a line and the Pointe du Diable bearing N 17 W Jack reduced sail, carried a night-glass up to the foretop, and took the ship in, ghosting along under topsails on the edge of the land-breeze. His eyes were used to the night, helped as it was by the stars and the sickle-moon: he had made out a good deal of what lay inshore and out to sea, and when the first dawn came up before the sun he was not surprised to see the Manche and Venus--but not the Astree--lying two miles off the reef to leeward, the Iphigenia just inside it, the Bellone, Minerve, Nereide and Ceylon Indiaman far over by Port South-East, and the charred wrecks of the Sirius and Magicienne in the lagoon. But what did give him a shock was the sight of a fifth ship down there, just astern of the shattered Nereide. Leaning his telescope on the rim and focusing with care he discovered what she was: the Ranger from Bombay. She was only a transport, but she would have been a treasure-ship to the remnant of his squadron, for she carried spare yards and topmasts, besides three hundred tons of invaluable stores, and he had been looking for her arrival at St Paul's these many days--the Otter, quite unfit for sea, was heaved down in expectation of what she should bring; the Staunch lacked almost everything; and if the Boadicea carried away a spar, she would have to whistle for it. And here was the Ranger fitting out the enemy. The Bellone, which must have suffered terribly in the long action, already had her topgallantyards across. His face took on a harder look.
No colours were flying yet from either the fort or the Iphigenia: had they surrendered? If not, conceivably his boats might tow the Iphigenia through the channel, covered by the Boadicea and the fort, and with even a battered consort he could set about the Venus and the Manche; for although he was short of stores, he was rich in men and ammunition. And this was no time for timid defensive measures. He came down on deck, gave orders for the ensign, the private signal, and a hoist stating his intention. The Boadicea stood in as the sun came up, signals flying, one eye on the French frigates, the other on the fort and the Iphigenia. Farther and farther in, and still no colours, though the sun was now a hand's-breadth over the horizon. Another few minutes and the Boadicea would be within random shot.
'A gun to windward, Mr Seymour,' said Jack. 'And shiver the foretopsail.'
In reply the British colours ran up the not so distant flagstaff: yet still the Boadicea hung off. Then after a pause in which hoists jerked up and down without the flags breaking out but with a crafty pretence of the halliard's jamming, the private signal.
'Hands about ship,' said Jack, for the island's private signal was ten days out of date.
Not one of the Boadiceas was unprepared for this, and she came about on to the larboard tack as briskly as a smuggling schooner, staying in her own length. The fort's seaward guns sent plumes of white water leaping from the swell two hundred yards short of her; a derisive cheer floated after them, and a little later a line of boats, carrying prisoners, put off the island for the Manche.
The Manche took them aboard and stood after the Vinus, which was already beating up under easy sail as though to get to the windward of the Boadicea. As soon as the Manche was up, both French frigates set their topgallants. They could be seen clearing for action, and they came on as though they meant it. Jack gazed at them with the utmost intensity, his eye hard to his glass, examining their captains' handling of their ships, gauging their sailing qualities, watching for ruses designed to mask their speed; and all the while he kept the Boadicea a little ahead, just out of range. By the time the watch had changed he knew he had the legs of them: he also knew that the Venus could outsail the Manche and that if he could induce them to separate . . . but while his mind was running on to the possible consequences of this separation to a night-engagement--to a boat-landing on the reef behind the fort--the French gave over the chase.
The Boadicea wore and pursued them, setting her royals to bring them within the extreme range of her brass bow-chaser, perched on the forecastle, and firing at the Venus, which wore Hamelin's broad pendant. The Venus and the Manche replied with guns run out of their gunroom ports, so low as to be ineffectual at this distance; and so the three ships ran, neither side doing the other any damage, until a lucky shot from the Boadicea, skipping three times over on the smooth swell, came aboard the Venus. The midshipman high on the foremast jack reported a commotion on the Venus's quarterdeck: immediately afterwards the French ships went about, and once more the Boadicea ran south and west.
All day she ran, trying every kind of ruse and lameduck trick to lure the faster-sailing Venus ahead of the Manche: but nothing would serve. Hamelin had no romantic notions of single combat, and he was determined to fight at an advantage. The two Frenchmen kept within half a mile of one another, doggedly chasing the Boadicea
