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Her commander, Captain Knox, was a very different sort of person to my late captain; and from his kind manner, and the way he spoke to the officers and men, he seemed truly to act the part of a father to his crew. The ship had been out a year and a half, and it was expected she would remain another year in the Pacific.
The captain merely answered "Bah," as if he had too much to think of just then to trouble himself about us, and issued some orders to his crew. Two long guns were immediately cast loose and pointed at the frigate. "They can't hope to contend with her," I observed to Bluff. But they did though, and began blazing away in right good earnest. They fired high, for their object was to wing her.
A few shots were fired wildly, and the next instant, as she was thrown on the beach, the midshipmen and their followers, rushing into the water, attacked the crew so vigorously with their cutlasses that half their number were killed or wounded before they could defend themselves; while the rest, as they were dragged out, were made prisoners.
And Archie helped them out, lifting his good mother in his arms clear of the wheel, skirts and all the crew standing about looking on. Some of them knew Jane and came in for a hearty handshake, and all of them knew the doctor. There was hardly a man among them whose cabin he had not visited not once, but dozens of times.
The sun pierced through the fog, and the ice was getting a little loosened under its dissolving action. But the reflection of the white rays produced a sad effect on the eyesight of several of the crew.
After Yorktown their depredations ceased for a time, but as the British government delayed peace their atrocities were renewed. It was a mongrel crew of this character that was giving chase to the sleigh and its occupants. They were easily recognized by their accouterments. On! And on! And on! To Peggy the whole landscape was featureless save for the farmhouse in the far distance.
It was during one of these visits to the cabin that the captain took his revolver from the place in which he had concealed it when he saw the prize-crew coming aboard, and put four pairs of hand-cuffs into his pockets; for when the rebel boarding officer hauled down his colors, he determined that at sunrise the next morning the Stars and Stripes should again float at his peak if he had to sacrifice half his crew to get them there.
Suppose you commanded a vessel of the state, authorised and approved in your office? suppose another officer came without notice, without your having heard a word of complaint and leaped upon your deck, with a crew double the number of your own, striking down and fettering your men.
"Hello!" said he. The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon him to go on. "No, sir!" said the captain. "No eat, no dance. Savvy?" "Poor old man!" returned one of the crew. "Him no eat?" "Lord, no!" said the captain. "Like-um too much eat. No got." "All right. Me got," said the sailor; "you tome here. Plenty toffee, plenty fei. Nutha man him tome too."
Had it been he or his ghost who had stood behind the Nordenfeldt shields with the bullets pattering against the steel and stinging the air overhead? He or his ghost, barefoot in the sand that sopped the blood of fallen comrades, the ship shaking with the detonation of her guns, the hoarse cheering of her crew re-echoing in his half- deafened ears?
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