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Updated: May 18, 2025
I listened intently for some seconds without hearing anything, and was about to say so, when I thought I caught a faint sound, as of the creaking of a boom; and at the same instant the two look-out men on the forecastle, forgetting, in the imminence of the danger, their instructions to be silent, simultaneously shouted, in sharp incisive tones: "Hard a-port!
At that part of the road, or street, was an embankment about eight feet high, and a drunken fellow tried to pass over it to the people opposite. One of the regular sergeant file-closers ordered him back, but he attempted to pass through the ranks, when the sergeant barred his progress with his musket "a-port."
Now we opened a tremendous fire on them, every gun telling. Then the helm was put a-port, the after-yards braced up, and again we were after them. "Again and again we practised the same manoeuvre, never allowing the `Ca Ira' to get a shot at us with one of her broadside guns.
The two ships, in the haste of their respective crews to get clear of each other, were now running in the troughs; and the same idea would seem to have suggested itself to me and the other master, at the same instant. Instead of endeavouring to keep away again, one kept his helm hard a-port, the other as hard a-starboard, until we both came by the wind, though on opposite tacks.
The mainsail flapped wildly for a moment, and as we luffed again we went over with a list that swung the boom back with such force that the ropes that held it were slipped, and the spar struck the skipper a blow upon the shoulder that sent him headlong overboard into the sea. Jerry and the mate saw the accident, and while I still held the tiller hard a-port, they at once got out the boat.
The Itasca, on the other hand, ran alongside one of the schooners and slipped the chains; but, unfortunately, as the hulk was set adrift without Captain Caldwell being notified, and the engines of the gunboat were going ahead with the helm a-port, the two vessels turned inshore and ran aground under fire of the forts.
And like a flash the thought occurred to Clif that whatever the reason for the strange act might be, now was the time to save the merchantman. "We can turn off to one side!" he gasped, "and lose her!" And with a bound he started for the pilot house. "Hard a-port!" he shouted to the man at the wheel.
"Hard a-port!" was shouted. Steam was blown off, and, amid confusion and turmoil indescribable, an ocean steamer struck the little Sparrow amidships, and fairly rammed her into the sea. It could scarcely be said that there was a crash. The one was too heavy and the other too light for that. The smack lay over almost gracefully, as if submitting humbly to her inevitable doom.
"'Em got a stream down, and all a rest of he anchors stowed," said the black, whose dark eye was glancing understandingly at the vessel, while he still continued to east his pebbles into the air: "S'pose he jam a helm hard a-port, misser Harry, and take a tide on he larboard bow, what you t'ink make him kick and gallop about! Golly!
I looked up, and saw a native canoe coming straight towards us. `Port! roared Old Salt, in an explosion that cleared away half the sandwich. `No, thankee; I prefer sherry, said I. But I stopped there, for I saw intuitively from the yell with which he interrupted me that something was wrong. `Hard a-port! he cried, jumping up and scattering his rations.
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