Fitz the Filibuster Part 59

"DEFENCE, NOT DEFIANCE."

"What did you say? Oh yes, I remember. It has come out all right; but we shall have them in here directly, after us."

"What's that?" said the skipper, who overheard his words. "I hope not, and I doubt of their getting within shot. Here, Burgess."

"Hallo!" growled the mate, and he came slowly up, looking, as Poole afterwards said, like the proverbial bear with a sore head.

"Here's Mr Burnett prophesying all kinds of evil things about us."

"Ah!" growled the mate. "He didn't know any better. I never prophesy till after the thing has taken place. What did he say?"

"That we shall have the gunboat in here after us directly. What do you say to that?"

The mate's sour countenance expanded into a broad smile, and he came close up to the middy and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good lad," he said. "I hope you are right."

"Hope I'm right!" said Fitz, staring. "Why, if she steams in within shot they'll make such practice with that gun that we shall be knocked all to pieces."

"You mean they would if they got well within sight; but look for yourself. Where could they lay her to get a shot? I can't see."

"No," said Fitz thoughtfully, as he looked anxiously back and saw that they were thoroughly sheltered by projecting cliff and headland. "I suppose they couldn't get within shot."

"No. That's right, my lad; and they couldn't come in anything like near enough if it were all open water from here to where they are now."

"What, is the water so shoal?" asked Fitz.

"Shoal? Yes," growled the mate, his face growing sour again. "We've nearly sc.r.a.ped the bottom over and over again. I only wish they'd try it. They'd be fast on some of those jags and splinters, and most likely with a hole in the bottom. My opinion, Captain Reed, is that if the skipper of that gunboat does venture in he'll never get out again; and that would suit us down to the ground. Bah--bah! He knows this coast too well, and he won't be such a fool as to try."

"No," said the skipper confidently; "you are quite right, Burgess. He won't be such a fool as to try. But we must have a boat out at once to go back and watch, for I'm pretty sure that Don what's-his-name will be lowering a couple of his with armed crews to come in and scuttle us if they can't tow us out."

"Ah, well, they can't do that," said the mate coolly. "They'd be meeting us on equal terms then, and you won't let them."

"No," said the skipper, smiling, as he turned to Fitz; "I don't think we shall let them do that, Mr Burnett. My lads will be only too glad to receive the gunboat's crew on equal terms and send them back with a flea in their ears."

"Ay," said the mate, with a grunt; "and quite right too. I think it is our turn to give them a bit of our mind, after the way in which they have been scuffling us about lately. Shall I go with the boat?"

"Yes, you'd better. Take the gig, and four men to row."

"I can go, father?" cried Poole eagerly.

"Well, I don't know," said the skipper. "If you go, Mr Burnett here will want to be with you, and I know how particular he is as a young officer not to be seen having anything to do with our filibustering, as he calls it."

Fitz frowned with annoyance, and seemed to give himself a regular s.n.a.t.c.h.

"You'd rather not go, of course?" continued the skipper dryly.

"I can't help wanting to go, Mr Reed," replied the lad sharply; "and if I went just as a spectator I don't see how I should be favouring any of your designs."

"Well, no," said the skipper dryly, "if you put it like that. I don't see after all how you could be accused of turning buccaneer. But would you really like to go?"

"Why, of course," said Fitz. "It's all experience."

"Off with you then," said the skipper; "only don't get within shot. I don't want to have to turn amateur doctor again on your behalf. I am clever enough at cuts and bruises, and I dare say if I were hard put to it I could manage to mend a broken leg or arm, but I wouldn't undertake to be hunting you all over to find where a rifle-bullet had gone.

Accidents are my line, not wounds received in war; and, by the way, while we are talking of such subjects, if we have to lie up here in this river for any time, you had better let me give you a dose or two of quinine."

"Oh, but I am quite well now," cried Fitz.

"Yes, and I want you to keep so, my lad. That's a very good old proverb that says, 'Prevention is better than cure.'"

A very short time afterwards the schooner's gig, with her little well-armed crew, was allowed to glide down with the stream, with the mate, boat-hook in hand, standing in the bows, Poole astern with the rudder-lines, and Fitz a spectator, thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the vast cliffs that arose on either side as they descended towards the river's mouth.

It was all zigzag and winding, the stream carrying them along slowly, for a sharp sea-breeze was dead against them, explaining how it was that the schooner had sailed up so easily as she had.

Fitz had ample proof, without Poole's drawing his attention to the fact, that there was no possibility of the gunboat making practice with her heavy piece, for everywhere the schooner was sheltered, the course of the river being all zigzag and wind, till all at once, as the men were dipping their oars gently, the gig pa.s.sed round a bend, and there was the enemy about three miles off sh.o.r.e, lying-to, with her great black plume of smoke floating towards them, spreading out like a haze and making her look strange and indistinct.

"Did you bring a gla.s.s, Poole, my lad?" growled the mate.

"No; I never thought of that."

"Humph! Never mind. I think I can manage. Both of you lads give a sharp look-out and tell me what you can see."

"Why, there's something between us and her hull," said Poole, "but I can't quite make out what it is. Surely she isn't on a rock?"

"No," cried Fitz; "I can see. She has lowered a boat."

"Two," said the mate, in his deep hoa.r.s.e voice. "I can make 'em out now. I thought that was it at first. Pull away, my lads, for all you're worth. Pull your port line, my lad, and let's run back. Hug the sh.o.r.e as much as you can, so as to keep out of the stream. Hah! If we had thought to bring a mast and sail and one of the other boats we could have been back in no time with this wind astern."

The gig swung round as the men bent in their quick steady pull, and they began to ascend the stream once more, while Fitz rose in his place, to look back watching the half-obscured gunboat till they had swept round the bend once more and she was out of sight, when he re-seated himself and noticed that the mate was still standing, intent upon cautiously taking cartridges from his pouch and thrusting them into the chambers of the revolver which he had drawn from the holster of his belt.

This looked like business, and Fitz turned to dart an inquiring look at his companion, who answered it with a nod.

"Well," thought Fitz, "if he thinks we are going to have a fight before we get back, why doesn't he order his men to load?"

But it proved that the mate did not antic.i.p.ate a fight before they got back. He had other thoughts in his head, and when at last, after a long and anxious row against the sharp current, with the lads constantly looking back to see if the gunboat's men were within sight, they reached the final zigzag, and caught sight of the schooner, old Burgess raised his hand and fired three shots at the face of the towering cliff.

These three were echoed back as about a score, when there was an interval, and three tiny puffs of grey smoke darted from the schooner's deck, and echoed in their turn.

"Signal answered," said Poole quietly, and the men made their ash-blades bend again in their eagerness to get back aboard.

"Why, what have they been about?" whispered Fitz.

"Looks like going fis.h.i.+ng," said Poole, with a grin. "Don't chaff at a time like this," cried Fitz pettishly. "I didn't know that you had got boarding-netting like a man-of-war."

"What, don't you remember the night you came aboard?"

"Not likely, with everything knocked out of my head as it was."