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On the small island, under which vessels were accustomed to anchor, was a dwelling or two, and a battery of two guns nine-pounders. These guns were to command the anchorage.
She was handled magnificently, there was no doubt of that; and presently, with a graceful sweep, she came surging up alongside, with the water spouting up in a clear transparent sheet under her sharp bows, her yards swinging simultaneously to meet her change of course, her white canvas gleaming in the brilliant sunlight, six long nine-pounders grinning through her bulwarks, and her deck crowded with men, as fair, yet as evil, a sight of its kind as the eye of man ever rested upon.
"Looks like a wagin," says Measles. "'Tis a wagin, ain't it?" "No," I said, feeling that miserable I didn't know what to do; "it isn't a wagon, Sam; but Why, there's another. A couple of field-pieces!" "Nine-pounders, by all that's unlucky," said Measles, slapping his thigh. "Then I tell you what it is, Ike Smith it's about time we said our prayers."
We had now but one of our starboard nine-pounders on its carriage, and word came from below that our battery of twelves was all but knocked to scrap iron, and their ports blown into one yawning gap.
As we drew near I was able to make out that here too our presence was productive of a tremendous amount of excitement; and presently fire was opened upon us from a battery of six nine-pounders that had been constructed on the rising ground immediately to the rear of the wharf, while the black flag was boldly run up on a flagstaff close at hand.
On the uncovered deck eight nine-pounders were mounted. Captain Jones again showed his desire to serve the cause by taking such a ship, and not waiting for something better.
"She turned out to be the `Requin, privateer, armed with eight long nine-pounders, with a crew of forty men in her forecastle, and her hold crammed with the choicest pickings of the cargoes of some five or six prizes. So you see she proved to be a valuable prize herself.
We at once opened fire upon them from the nine-pounders as a matter of course, but the rascals had not only learned wisdom but had also evidently very sharp eyes, for at the moment when the match was about to be applied to the guns the canoes immediately in the line of fire smartly swerved from their course and the shot went hissing harmlessly past, missing their mark by the merest hair's-breadth.
And a very handsome, rakish, and formidable craft she looked, as she lay alongside the quay, her enormously long and delicately-tapering masts towering high above the warehouse roof; her wide-spreading yards, extending far over the quay, accurately squared; her standing and running rigging as taut and straight as iron bars; her ten long nine-pounders grinning beneath her triced-up port-lids; her brightly-polished brass long eighteen-pounder mounted upon her forecastle; her spacious deck scraped and scoured until it was as white as snow; and her new copper and her black topsides gleaming and shimmering in the gently-rippling tide.
The lieutenant had meanwhile not been idle, the man-of-war's launch and pinnace having been lowered with their nine-pounders in the bows, all primed and loaded; and, on my getting after him in the pinnace, he gave the order to pull in towards the scene of action, the gunboat meanwhile bringing her big Armstrongs to bear on the fleet of junks in the middle of the lagoon, only waiting until we got well up to the ship before firing so as to take the pirates by surprise.
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