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Both of them, as well as Dick Needham, were nearly exhausted, and poor Tom Bowles, their companion, had received a wound which brought him to the deck, when Hemming's voice was heard above their heads, and he leaped down from the forecastle, off which he had driven the enemy. With loud cheers he led on his men; the pirates gave way before them.
We are to continue our course for Sierra Leone." In a couple of hours the frigate was out of sight. There appeared to be every promise of fine weather. Hemming's chief concern was for the blacks, who were sickly. Several had already died, and not a day passed without four or five being added to the number. It was important, therefore, to make the passage as quickly as possible.
If the slaver attempted to defend herself at all, they might well expect some desperate fighting, and from her appearance it could scarcely be expected that she would do otherwise. Hemming's boat, which pulled the fastest, got the lead. The men every now and then gave a cheer to animate each other.
On dashed Lieutenant Hemming's boat, the crew, as British seamen always will when work is to be done, bending bravely to their oars. They also, as had the other boat, met a strong current. "Hurrah, my lads, hurrah!" shouted the lieutenant, bending forward almost mechanically to give time to their strokes.
And brief the respite; soon as they seized him, his sword-doom was spoken, and the burnished blade a baleful murder proclaimed and closed. But Hemming's kinsman hindered this.
"I'm tired of drawing; my head is a jumble of other people's ideas already, and Herr Pedalsturm has put the piano out of tune. Mark always makes a model of me if I go to him, and I don't like to see my eyes, arms, or hair in all his pictures. Miss Hemming's gossip is worse than fussing over new things that I don't need.
I don't see anything," was his somewhat incoherent answer. "There it is again; music some one singing," continued Alick. "Can you see nothing?" The two midshipmen peered eagerly out into the darkness, but nothing could they discern. They, however, drew Hemming's attention to the circumstance. He had been walking the deck, so the noise of his own footsteps prevented him from hearing the sound.
"I knew that you would decide rightly," answered Murray. "I heartily congratulate you!" exclaimed the admiral. "Deb and I will take good care of your wife while you're away; it won't be for a long period, I hope; and it won't be Hemming's fault if you have not some opportunity of distinguishing yourself and gaining your post-rank.
In an instant, seeing what had occurred, they fled with shrieks of dismay down the rock to the spot whence they had come. Amid wind and rain, the lightning flashing and the thunder roaring, the survivors passed that terrific night. The day dawned at last. Hemming's first resolve was to try and conciliate the unfortunate wretches by offering them food. Their officers gladly agreed to the proposal.
"If you were to begin now, and to take two or three tumblersful as I do, by the time you are my age, you would have drunk fifty hogsheads of rum, and I don't know how many tons of water." Perhaps Hemming's calculations were not exactly correct, but the advice was, at all events, good.
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