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Boarders, follow me!" cried George, dashing to the rail, and making a spring thence in upon the Aurora's deck, Mr Bowen at the same time leading his detachment on board by way of the fore-rigging. The Englishmen were met by a very formidable party, which had evidently been told off to board the brig, and in an instant a fierce and sanguinary melee arose on the Aurora's deck.
However, by sending about two hundred people into the fore-rigging, after a hard struggle, she wore; found she did not make so good weather on this tack as on the other; for as the sea began to run across, she had not time to rise from one sea before another lashed against her.
At three o'clock in the afternoon the solitary survivor, the man in the fore-rigging, who was evidently suffering intensely from hunger and cold, unlashed himself, threshed his arms against his body for five minutes to restore the circulation in them, and then took off his coat, waved his hand to the fishermen on top of the cliff, climbed down the shrouds, and plunged into the sea but not to commit suicide.
Having climbed into the fore-rigging, however, so as to have a good look at the boat and its occupants as we neared them, I was quite as quick as the skipper to notice what had happened, having, indeed, foreseen the contingency before it occurred.
Then, at Rogers' command, one of the mutineers separated himself from the main body, and in the course of a minute or two was seen leisurely ascending the fore-rigging with a tail-block in one hand and the end of a coil of light line in the other.
"If you intend boarding us, you had better do so by way of our fore-rigging, or you may get a nasty fall; we are very much littered up here abaft with spars and so on." "Ah, thank you very much; I will take your advice," was the reply. George saw the man motion with his arm, and the brig's course was altered sufficiently to put her alongside with her gangway even with the Aurora's fore-mast.
Here I met William Deer, the boatswain, and a black boy of the name of Philips, who was the powder-boy of our gun. "Deer, she's gone!" I said. The boatswain made no answer, but walked out on the fore-rigging, towards the mast-head. He probably had some vague notion that the schooner's masts would be out of water if she went down, and took this course as the safest.
At length a piece of canvas was lashed to the fore-rigging which gave her a balance, and she rode easy until about five o'clock in the morning, when by a sudden broach the canvas was carried away, and a tremendous sharp sea boarded her forward; starting several stanchions, carrying away part of her starboard bulwark and rail, and simultaneously the foretop-gallant-mast, which snapped just above the withe.
About five, the wreck parted by the fore-rigging, and so many persons were thrown into the sea, that only seventy were left on the forecastle, they being lashed to the wreck. Even these were gradually diminished in number, some giving out from exhaustion, and others anticipating fate, by drowning themselves.
Seeing, therefore, that the quickest way of deciding the engagement was to run us on board, they bore right down upon us; and, unable to avoid them, the fluke of our anchor became hooked on to their fore-rigging.
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