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Updated: June 21, 2025
This made me aware of my error; so I sat down to consider how it could have happened, and at last the truth flashed on my mind. You see it was a very natural mistake I had made, for the needle of my compass was all the time pointing to the North Pole, just as a capstan-bar does to the capstan, while I was running round at the other end of it.
The second boat had made for the stay beneath the bows, just as Dumlow had been called away with his capstan-bar, and as I looked forward, there, to my horror, dimly-seen through and beneath the ascending steam, were four men who had climbed on board. "We're licked, Mr Dale, sir; but hit, shoot, do anything as they come over the side. Do, dear lad, shoot Frenchy, whatever you do.
Suddenly, away aft, I heard shouting, and then on the deck overhead, came the loud thudding of someone pomping with a capstan-bar. Straightway, I turned and made a run for the port doorway, along with the four other men. We rushed out through the doorway on to the deck. It was getting dusk; but that did not hide from me a terrible and extraordinary sight.
A fierce, though unequal struggle, at once commenced. The captain, armed with a weapon which he wielded with both hands, and which I took to be a capstan-bar, struck right and left among the boarders as they attempted to gain the deck, and one, at least of them, fell back with a heavy plunge into the water.
And as the infuriated scamp rose which he did with a bound that placed him on his feet and in defensive posture; as though the deck had been a spring-board Kirkwood leaped back, seized a capstan-bar, and faced him with a challenge. "Stand clear, Stryker!" he warned the man tensely, himself livid with rage. "If you move a step closer I swear I'll knock the head off your shoulders!
"Bear a hand here, or shure the mounseers will be out of the trap," he shouted, at the same time seizing a capstan-bar, which was close at hand, and dealing a blow with it at the head of the Frenchman, who fell stunned off the ladder, back upon his companions following at his heels.
The captain tried to restrain the men who were near him, but they pushed him aside. "I now stepped forward; I pulled my great hat still further over my face; I glared at the men before me; and I brought my capstan-bar with a tremendous thump upon the deck. "'Sirrah, varlets! I roared. 'What mean ye? Stop where ye are, and if one man of ye comes nearer I'll cleave him to the chine!
We leaped up the side eagerly, and yet with fear and trembling, not knowing what our reception might be, and a few words explained all. "Humph!" said old Jonas, "nice chase we've had after you. Well, I suppose I mustn't after all." He picked up a capstan-bar, and balanced it in his hands before throwing it down under the little bulwark with a loud clatter. "Mustn't what, father?" said Bigley.
There was among us a Dutchman, who was very forward in complying with the officers' request; but being awkward and careless withall, he suffered himself to be jambed between the end of the capstan-bar and the side of the ship, which hurt him badly.
Without response, a grim smile wreathing his thin, hard lips, Stryker thrust one hand into his pocket, and withdrawing a coin, tossed it to the waiting waterman. Whereupon Kirkwood backed warily to the rail, abandoned the capstan-bar and dropped over the side. Nodding to the boatman, "The Steen landing quickly," he said in French.
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