ULL, sunless noon found the pirates’ sloop in a welter of gray sea that matched the leaden scurry of the sky above them. They had long since dropped the chase and had made shift to double-reef the mainsail but they were in sorry case. The cabin accommodations were scanty and sixty of them were forced to make shift for themselves upon the spume-swept deck. The water was fairly warm but they were drenched and endeavored to offset their misery by copious drafts of rum.
As the afternoon wore on darkness came rapidly with an increasing gale and it was all they could do with tackles to the goos neck of the tiller, two men at the wheel and two in the combination gunroom and cabin, to keep the ship’s head to the sea. The waves ran riot, charging in a maelstrom. The sky turned slaty-black, illumined with sheets of lightning that lit up the seething yeast of the tortured ocean and the claps of thunder kept up an incessant peal.
On deck the men answered the storm with blasphemies that were swept aft in a jumble of imprecation. The sloop staggered under the blows of wind and water. In the cabin the billows pounded at her stern as if a giant beat upon a mighty drum.
The place was reeking with foul air and the lamp shone dimly through trailing tobacco smoke. At the head of the table Bane held place, having given over the deck to the quartermaster, “Scarry-Dick” Denton. His eyes were set and his beard was soaked with liquor spilled by the tossing of the sloop as he tried to quaff it.
“Sink or swim,” he shouted, “we’ll go through bravely. Blood and fire, listen to the thunder!”
He rose, swaying, as the cabin glared blue in the lightning that poured in through port holes and skylight, and held to the breech of a gun, securely lashed behind its closed port.
“The gods are drunk with us in their tipple and have gone together by the ears. Death and fury, an’ we could, I’d run out the guns and return ’em a salute. The king’s men have run for cover but we are bound for the open. Blow, ye, blow. The wind’s from all quarters. I’m for the deck.”
He made his way over the sodden bodies of some of the crew and reached the deck as one of the short and furious seas broke upon the poop, tore away the taffrail and swept the two men from the wheel, driving them into the boarding netting that had been stretched above the coaming for safety lines. Bane jumped to the tiller and put his strength to it while the men on the watch-tackles heaved with him.
A maddened gust of wind roared at the sloop and seemed for the moment to lift her clear of the seething water. Her stern crashed down, the reefed staysail broke clear and whipped out of sight like a storm-herded gull. Scarry-Dick, clinging to the netting, fought his way forward and, with three men, worked at the furl of the thrashing jib. A tiny lull saved them from the trough and the pirates managed to set enough headsail to keep the sloop from broaching to.
The carpenter clawed his way out of the cabin and clung to Bane, shouting in his ear. Water was working in, already above the line of bilge. As the quartermaster came back Bane signaled for him to take the helm and dived below, kicking the drunken men in the cabin into sensibility and buffeting them before him.
It was impossible to open the forehatch but they dragged a spare spar aft and rigged it with a funnel of canvas, striving like demons until they had got it clear of the bowsprit and dropped it into the sea as the mainsail came down on the run and was smothered by twenty men. The sea-anchor filled, the sloop swung head on, bare-poled, backing before the storm, but riding it, while the carpenter and his assistants strove to stanch the leak where the oakum had worked out of a seam.
It was the last flurry of the storm. The wind died away with howls of baffled rage, the sullen seas slowly subsided and, in the west, the sky lifted to a pale streak of chrome. Upon the luminous background showed the lifting topmasts of a big ship, apparently a merchantman.
“There’s our next craft, lads,” cried Bane. “In with the sea-anchor and up sail again. She heads this way. ’Tis two glasses yet to sunset. We’ll sleep aboard of her to-night.”
The merchantman came slowly on while the clouds still lifted, trailing skirts of the fast disappearing hurricane. The air was sweet, the sea, still rough and covered with catspaws, a brilliant indigo. The sloop sailed on to meet her, the crew crowding the cabin and lying flat upon the decks, covered with spare canvas. Pistols were Stuck in sashes, there was a cutlas for every right hand, a keen knife ready for each left.