The First Capture Part 17

The boy started at once and without making any reply. He kept along close under the rail to be out of range of any one who was watching him from the schooner's deck, and when he came within sight of Zeke he was horrified to find him with his face all covered with blood.

"Oh Zeke, they have hit you," exclaimed Enoch.

"Don't I know that?" replied the wheelman, who stuck to his work as though there was nothing the matter with him. "But as long as they do not get me down I am going to stand up. Do you see that man alongside the schooner's wheel? Well he is the one that shot me."

Enoch took just one glance at the schooner and saw that the man referred to had just loaded his pistol and was now engaged in priming it. He cast frequent glances toward Zeke and grinned at him the while as if to tell him that his second shot would go to the mark; but he did not take notice of Enoch who, kneeling down behind the rail, brought his gun to bear on him. It spoke almost immediately, and the man dropped his pistol, turned part way around and sank down lifeless where he stood.

"There!" exclaimed Zeke. "That was a good shot. Now see if you can get that man at the wheel. That will leave her without any guiding hand, and before she can bring another man to helm I may be able to come up with her."

"I was sent here for that purpose," said Enoch, rolling over on his back and reaching for his powder-horn. "I am going to pick off every man they send there."

In a few minutes the gun was ready, after trying in vain to retain his hold of the spokes, the steersman went down in a heap. Of course the schooner came into the wind, and Zeke uttered a yell as she veered round broadside to the sloop; and in a moment more there was a rush of men from the deck and Enoch and Zeke were standing alone.

"Boarders away!" shouted Captain O'Brien, as he made the two vessels fast together. "Now, boys, show what you're are made of."

Zeke released his hold of the wheel, and caught up his club which stood beside him where he could get his hands upon it at a moment's warning; he cleared the rails of the vessels without using his hands, and Enoch lost sight of him in the fracas. Somehow, Enoch could not have told how it happened, he was close at his heels when he reached the schooner's deck, and between using his gun as a club to fell a man to the deck and making use of it as a parry to ward off a blow that somebody aimed at his head, he did not know anything more until he heard a voice exclaim in piteous accents:

"I surrender! I surrender!"

"Who is that?" shouted Captain O'Brien. "Do you all surrender? If you do, throw down your weapons."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Capture of the Schooner.]

There was a sound of dropping hand-spikes and cutla.s.ses, and in an instant there was silence on the deck. The smoke of the hand-grenades with which the boarders had been greeted floated away after a while, and then the provincials were able to see what they had done and how great was the number of men that they had to mourn. Enoch was astounded. It did not seem possible for him to step in any direction without treading upon the body of friend or foe. The two bodies of men opposed to each other were about thirty on a side, and at least half that number were lying on the deck dead, or wounded so badly that they could not get up.

He looked everywhere for Captain Moore, and finally found him with a saber-cut in his side. His first action had proved his death.

"Now the next thing is Caleb," said Enoch, starting toward the gangway to go below. "I hope that nothing has happened to him."

Enoch did not want to go on talking to himself in this way, for something told him that he might find his friend Caleb cold in death.

He knew where the brig was and hurried down to it, and on the way he found half a dozen men who were wounded and the doctor and his a.s.sistant attending to their wants. It was a horrible sight, and Enoch turned away his head that he might not see it. A few steps brought him to the brig, and there was a hand stuck out to grasp his own. It was Caleb sure enough, and no signs of a wound on him. He was as jolly and full of fun as ever.

"Enoch, old boy, I knew you would not rest easy until you had got me,"

said Caleb. "Put it there."

"Are you not hurt a bit?" asked Enoch. He almost dreaded to ask the question for some how he seemed to think that no living boy could come out of that fight without being desperately wounded. Enoch did not stop to think of himself. He appeared to know that he was going to come out all right.

"Open the door and let me out," repeated Caleb, taking hold of the grating in front of him and shaking it with all his strength. "I have been in here long enough."

"Who has got the key?" asked Enoch. "If I can't find the key I shall have to chop the grating down."

"Do you know the boatswain?"

Enoch shook his head.

"Well, he is the one that has the key, and you will have to find him in order to get it. Say!" said Caleb, seizing his friend by the arm and pulling him up close to him. "I ought to 'start' that fellow. He was going to be awful mean to me if we had started for New York. Why don't you go and get the key?"

Enoch went but he did not know where he was going to find the boatswain.

At the head of the gangway he met a Britisher coming down with his arm in a sling, and he asked him if he could show the man to him.

"Yes, I can," said the sailor. "He has gone to Davy's locker sure. I'll bet he won't start me any more. Come on and I will show him to you."

Enoch followed him to the deck and there, where the British had gathered to meet the boarders from the sloop and but a little way from his captain, lay the boatswain with an ugly thrust from a cutla.s.s near his heart. By feeling of his pockets on the outside Enoch soon discovered his bunch of keys, and he soon had possession of them.

"You will not get a chance at that boatswain on this trip," said Enoch, as he proceeded to open the door. "He has gone where he can't hurt you nor anybody else by 'starting' him. He is killed."

He opened the door and Caleb fairly jumped into his arms. After they had embraced each other for a minute or two Caleb asked after his mother.

"Of course she felt very bad to know that you had been taken prisoner, but she did not cry," said Enoch. "I told her that when I came back to-night I should fetch you with me, and I am going to keep my promise."

"Let us go on deck and see how things look up there," said Caleb. "You had a lively time taking this boat. I never heard such a roar as these guns made."

If Caleb, when he was down below, thought things were lively, what must he have thought when he came out of the gangway and saw the number of men that had been killed and wounded during the fight! Almost the first man he saw was Captain Moore.

"How many men did you have on each side?" he asked in astonishment. "Did you shoot that old flint-lock of yours?"

"I did, but I shot to maim, not to kill. I couldn't do it. No doubt they would have used me worse than we will them, but you see they did not get the chance. There's Wheaton pulling down the flag. Let us go up and hear what he has to say."

The flag was already down and Wheaton was folding it up tenderly to carry it under his arm. Probably if it had been an American flag and the victory had been the other way, there would not have been so much attention shown it by the Britishers who pulled it down. Wheaton shook Caleb by the hand, asked him how he had fared as a prisoner in the power of the enemies of his country and said as he gathered up the flag--

"Captain O'Brien says that this is the first time this flag has ever been hauled down by a foe to England. She has made everybody strike to her, but _she_ has struck to n.o.body. It would not have been pulled down now if she had treated us right. She will find before she gets through with it that a little flock of Yankees, to which her troops came so near to surrendering at Lexington, are as good as they make them. We have met them, man for man, and whipped them all."

CHAPTER XVI.

AFTER THE BATTLE.

"There, sir," said Captain O'Brien, drawing a long breath of relief and patting with his hand the British flag which Wheaton carried under his arm, "the Yankees have done the work. But there will be mourning when we get back to Machias. Who would have thought that those Britishers would have fought so desperately."

"Captain, they had guns, you know, and we had nothing heavier than flint-locks. Who would have thought that our men would have fought so desperately to accomplish an object? I tell you that each man deserves three hearty cheers to pay him for what he has done."

The fight was over, but now the dead and wounded had to be taken care of. After a short consultation with Wheaton and Zeke the captain decided that all the wounded men should be taken on board the schooner where there was a doctor and his a.s.sistant to take care of them, and all the prisoners were to go on board the sloop.

"You will have to stay aboard here with me and let the doctor look after your wound, Zeke," said the captain. "It is bleeding fearfully."

"Bussin' on it, I won't do it," said Zeke, earnestly. "As soon as I get some water to wash this blood off I will be all right. I stood at the helm of that sloop when she overhauled the schooner, and I am going to stand at her wheel when she goes into the harbor. That's a word with a bark on it."

Zeke turned away to hunt up a bucket to aid him in was.h.i.+ng out his wound. Zeb Short was there with a club in his hand, and it was covered with blood, too. He had been listening to the words that pa.s.sed between the captain and Zeke, and was evidently waiting for a chance to put in a word for himself.

"Were you hit?" asked Wheaton.

"Nary time," said Zeb, and his words and actions showed that it would take a better man than was to be found in the schooner's company to lay him up with a wound. "I don't believe in fighting, and for saying them words Zeke came pretty near punching me; but when you are in for it, why, you have got to do the best you can. How many men will you want to guard the sloop on the way in?"

"Let all the men who have flint-locks go aboard of her," answered the captain, "and let them stay around the wheel with Zeke. But first you must put all the unwounded prisoners in irons. Do you know where to find them?"

Zeb knew and dove down the hatchway out of sight. When he came back he had but six pairs of irons in his hand--"not enough to go all the way round," as he said. The prisoners who were still in a group on the forecastle, were ordered aft, and obediently held out their hands for the irons. Enoch and Caleb were close by watching the operation, and when the latter came to run his eye over the men he found that there was one of whom he had promised himself that he would say a good word if chance ever threw it in his way. It was the man who had given him the only bite to eat while he was in the brig.