The midshipman grasped the hilt of the light cutlass Beamish had found for him, and tried to control the excited thumping of his heart. He was not exactly afraid, but he was far from comfortable. Unless there was a complete lack of order and discipline on board the Vengeur, someone must have seen the approaching sloop by now. She was flying the Tricolour from her peak, and he would not run up the English colours until he was ready to engage. But that moment would very soon be here. Mr. Quinn told himself that these desperate heroics were not at all his line--caution and strategy in warfare were his preferences. Almost without his knowing it, his hand stole to his side-pocket and took out his spectacles. With those firmly perched on his nose he felt more confident.
They were barely a mile trom the battling ships now, and he could see the muzzles of cannon peering trom the vengeur's gun-ports.
"Sir! "
Dobbs ran up to him, his whiskered face red and anxious. "The Frenchy, Cartier, sir!" he panted. "He's dead-killed!"
"Who killed him?" snapped the midshipman.
"Dunno, sir. He's lyin' stabbed in the alleyway near the door o' the gunnery store--an' what's more, sir, t' other Frog officer's missin' . Bust open the door of his cabin!"
So Brunel was free and hiding somewhere in the ship! Brunel could be dangerous and must be found at once.
"Get Eccles and Wallace and search the ship!" Septimus rapped.
"Hurry, man!"
Dobbs turned to obey. He had not taken three paces when there was a cry from for'ard, followed by the crack of a pistol. Up from the forehatch sprang a wild figure with gleaming eyes and black locks streaming in the wind. It was Charles Brunel, a smoking pistol in his hand. He looked round him desperately, saw the seamen making for him, and ran for the weather bulwarks. Beamish, drawing his pistol, sprinted to intercept him.
"Vive la France!" came the Frenchman's cracked scream as he leapt onto the rail.
Beamish's pistol banged a reply. BruneI flung up his arms and fell forward into the sea, shot through the head.
"Quarters, there!" shouted the midshipman as the seamen crowded to the side to look over. "We'll be in action in five minutes! Is anyone hurt?" he added as Beamish came running aft.
"No, sir--the Frog loosed off at Wallace and missed."
"Very good. Man the larboard guns, Mr. Beamish, if you please, and stand by to fire and board."
"Aye aye, sir."
A bare half-mile of choppy sea separated the sloop from the roar and smoke of the battle. The death of Cartier and Brunel's escape were unimportant matters compared with the fight to come. Mr. Quinn, forcing himself to keep cool, ran an eye over his men as they stood to their guns. Only two of the twelvepounders could be manned, and their crews of two and three men were too small to reload them quickly. One shot, and then up the side of the Vengeur--that was all he could do. He managed to grin at the thought of the queer boarding-party they would make. Beamish in his leopard-skin, three of the others in redand-green motley, himself in black satin Court dress.
There couldn't be more than a quarter of a mile to go now. Still no aggressive action from the French warship. All her attention was concentrated on the struggle with Althea, no doubt. He could picture the mad fighting as the frigate's men strove to fling back the superior forces of their opponents from their decks. . . .
What, he wondered suddenly, had Brunel been doing for' ard? Why had he killed Cartier--for he it must have been who stabbed his fellow-countryman? Cartier must have been trying to stop him from doing something. What?
Scarcely had the problem entered his mind when his eye saw the answer. Out of the sloop's forehatch burst a mushroom of oily black smoke. Charles Brunei's last work for his country before he died had been done well. The Chasseur was on fire.
Beamish had seen the gush of smoke. He darted to the forehatch and disappeared, to appear again almost immediately and race aft to his commander.
"Gunnery store's afire, sir!" he panted. "It's blazing down there -- no getting at it!"
"Better abandon ship, sir," ventured Frith, behind him at the helm.
Septimus's thoughts raced through his mind. It was a matter of minutes before the fire, fanned by the strong breeze, would spread and reach the magazine. To rig and man the pumps was impossible in the time. This, then, was to be the end of his heroics -- to abandon his prize, to take to the boat and pull away, to watch the Chasseur blown sky-high when the fire had its will.
The smoke and thunder of the sea-fight was a bare four hundred yards ahead when he made the daring decision.
"Mr. Beamish!" he cried. "Two hands to the mainbrace, two to lower the boat! Larboard your helm, Frith-bring the wind abeam!"
As the sloop swung away from her course, heeling over until the wavetops lopped over her lee rail, he sprang to the flag halyards. Down came the Tricolour, and up soared the English flag. The captured Chasseur was to serve Britain after all.
Red flame was shooting from the foredeck now, licking upward at the foot of the sail. Beamish and his men had the larboard boat lowered and its painter made fast to the rail.
"Now the grapnels, Mr. Beamish-lash the ends and stand by to launch them at the Frenchman's bows!"
The sloop was almost dead to windward of the locked ships. He could see Althea's stern, and the flash of steel as men fought there. Vengeur's bows were towards him.
"Helm over!" he told Frith. "Put her before the wind and sheer her alongside!"
Round came the Chasseur, her bowsprit pointing straight at the French warship like a fencer's foil. With the wind right astern, she foamed down upon the big ship. Someone aboard Vengeur had seen the little craft's charge. A few figures gesticulated from the foredeck, a scattered fire from half-a-dozen muskets crackled ineffectually as, with smoke pouring from her and her foresail ablaze, she rushed to the attack.
"Down mainsail!"
With the red hull of the Frenchman only a pistol-shot away, the mainyard came down with a rush. The blazing sloop ran in under the huge bowsprit and Frith's strong hands pushed the tiller over until her own bowsprit rasped along the enemy's side.
"Away grapnels!" came Beamish's bull roar, and three grapnels hurtled through the air on their lines.
Every grapnel caught in the bowsprit rigging of the Vengeur and held fast. Although the lowering of the mainsail had taken much of the way off her, the jerk as the sloop was brought up short threw Septimus off his balance. When he recovered himself he saw that the Chasseur was held close against the fore part of the bigger vessel's hull, the two wooden sides grinding and splintering as the waves set them heaving against each other. The sloop's foresail was a sheet of flame, and flames stabbed upwards with orange-red tongues from half-a-dozen places on the deckplanking. It might be five minutes or more, or only five seconds, before the fire reached the magazine and it blew up. That explosion must undoubtedly damage the Vengeur severely--but they could not wait for that moment.
"All hands--abandon ship!" shouted the midshipman above the tumult of sound that came from overhead.
Musket-balls sang through the air about him as he started for the bulwarks. A loud groan made him turn. The faithful Frith was sinking to shoulder.
"Overside wi' ye, sir!" he growled almost angrily as Septimus bent over him. "Ye've not a second to spare--and I'm done!"
"Maybe--but I'm not!" retorted Septimus, and with a great effort he got his shoulder under the man's body and staggered to his feet.
Again the muskets banged and he heard the balls thud into the deck behind him as he tottered towards the rail. Beamish sprang to meet him. Frith was quickly transferred to the giant seaman's shoulders and carried down into the waiting boat. Septimus, the last to leave the vessel he had commanded for less than a day, was not slow to follow. The moment he landed in the boat she was shoved off, and Dobbs and Wallace at the oars sent her flying through the water away from the doomed sloop.