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Updated: May 4, 2025
For a moment it appeared as though the little steamer, with her crew of dead, would still effect her purpose, for the torpedo was still intact at the end of its spar, and the launch was heading straight for the battleship; but just at the last moment the corpse of the helmsman was jerked from the tiller by the motion of the sea, and the launch's head immediately fell off a point or two.
But the distress of these very distressed mariners was not yet complete; a strange fatality seemed to have embarked with them. It was now the launch's turn: first the third boat, next the second, and now the launch in proper, though fortunately not arithmetical progression. It was discovered that the supply of coal could not possibly last to the ship! What was to be done?
"Hurroo! pull, bhoys, and let's shecure that grog annyhow," exclaimed the irrepressible Flanaghan; and with another cheer and a hearty laugh the men stretched themselves out and plied the stout ashen oars until the water fairly buzzed again under the launch's bows, and it almost seemed as though they would lift her bodily out of the water.
"We will have soon," replied the launch's helmsman, rushing back to his post and ringing the bell. Thus recalled to his post, the engineer turned on the speed. The craft made swiftly for Hiram Driggs' float. A few moments later it ran alongside. Warned by the whistle, Driggs and two of his workmen came running out to the float. "Get a barrel as quickly as you can!" shouted young Prescott.
The helmsman had been cut nearly to pieces by the hail of bullets, and he now hung dead over the tiller of the little steamer, which was consequently yawing wildly about. The remainder of her crew were in the well abaft the boiler, some lying huddled up on the floor, while others hung loosely, like half-empty sacks, over the launch's bulwarks, their arms trailing in the water.
"I expect they're trimming the coal the collier landed into the sheds." "It's possible," Dick agreed, and after hesitating for a few moments held on his course. He remembered that one can hear a launch's engines and the splash of torn-up water for some distance on a calm night. After a time, the lights of Santa Brigida twinkled ahead, and when they steamed up to the harbor both looked about.
Pierre, bringing the mail. She was sitting out on the very peak of the launch's bow, her feet almost dragging the water, waving the packet of home letters over her head. At the sight of her there was a general scattering in the direction of the tents, for the sliders suddenly remembered that it was dinner time and the mail would be distributed at the table.
It was hot enough to make the breeze caused by the launch's progress pleasantly cool, and both men lay smoking on the deck, lazily watching the water and enjoying the easy motion. Hilliard had made the wheel fast, and reached up every now and then to give it a slight turn. "Jolly, I call this," he exclaimed, as he lay down again after one of these interruptions.
For near an hour the light baffling air came in puffs, as before, during which time the launch's head was kept, as near as the two gentlemen could judge, to the northward, making but little progress; and then the breeze drew gradually round into one quarter, and commenced blowing with a steadiness that they had not experienced before that night.
The three leaped; and the launch's stern dipped perilously under the tremendous influx of weight; the flaming oil alongside licked ravenously at their smaller and nearer prey.
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