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Her head came off the wind again and she went bowing along over the swells to the southward faster than one would have imagined possible. Bonnet had figured on crossing her at close range, but as she swept onward he realized that he would go by too far astern to hail her if he kept his present direction. Herriot himself took the tiller.
Temple, who was sometimes in consultation with him, and was always amused by his quasi-fanfaronade, assured me that Herriot was actually scheming. The next we heard of him was, that he had been seen at a whitebait hotel down the river drunk with Edbury. Janet also heard of that, and declined to see Heriot again. Our last days marched frightfully fast.
Herriot was no mean swordsman of the rough and ready seaman's type and had a great physique as well, but his previous labors he had been the first man on board and had already accounted for a fair share of the defenders had rendered him slow and arm-weary. The ready parrying, blade to blade, ceased suddenly as his foot slipped backward in a pool of blood.
"Don't your consciences tell you that?" exclaimed the prisoner, Herriot, in a loud, fearless voice, running his stern, indignant eye over the court, its officers, and leading partisans around the bar. "Don't your consciences tell you what it was? Then I will!
It seemed that several of the enemy's crew, few as they were at the beginning, had been killed by the explosion of the gun. Only a half-dozen rose to meet the pirate onslaught. Not one asked for mercy, even after Herriot had shot down the captain, and the tide of sea-rovers rushed at and over the little handful of defenders in an overwhelming flood. There was no need of the plank this time.
A glum despair came over the crew. They lolled, for the most part silent or grumbling curses, against the rails, with here and there one trying to whistle up a wind. The other sloop rapidly drew away to the south. Bonnet had been talking to Herriot with quick gestures and pointings. Now he walked forward swiftly and the men got to their feet with a jump.
One night it was perhaps a week after Jeremy's capture, and they had been sighting low bits of land on both bows all day Dave Herriot came on deck about the middle of the watch and told Curley, the Jamaican second mate, he might go below. He set Job to take soundings and, himself taking the tiller, swung her over to port with the wind abeam.
At this moment a sash was thrown up, and the prisoner, Herriot, appeared at a window of the court-room above.
Temple, who was sometimes in consultation with him, and was always amused by his quasi-fanfaronade, assured me that Herriot was actually scheming. The next we heard of him was, that he had been seen at a whitebait hotel down the river drunk with Edbury. Janet also heard of that, and declined to see Heriot again. Our last days marched frightfully fast.
"Who are you, Father Herriot?" exclaimed the now completely surprised Woodburn; "who are you, to take such an interest in us, and bestow on us gifts so valuable, with so little hope, as you can have, of any adequate return?"
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