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Updated: May 1, 2025
As the boat was nearing its pier in the North River a two-funnelled, drab, foreign-looking sea-going steamer was dropping down toward the bay. The boat turned its nose in toward its slip. The steamer veered as if to seek midstream, and then yawed, seemed to increase its speed and struck the Coney boat on the side near the stern, cutting into it with a terrifying shock and crash.
Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred. "How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the craft yawed heavily. "I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy. "W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n."
It was plainly evident, however, that she had been badly hulled, as she yawed wildly while passing from sight behind the headlands. This of itself was victory enough for the present, and at the end of twenty minutes' firing, we withdrew out of range.
A clever man was put to the steering oar, and the musketeers were bidden to sing out whenever the enemy yawed, so as to fire her guns. It was in action, and in action only, that the captain had command over his men. The steersman endeavoured to keep the masts of the quarry in a line, and to approach her from astern.
"Port you-ah hel-um, sah!" yelled the pilot in an ecstasy of fright. "Starboard a little," came the quiet command. Curley Crothers moved his wheel and the Puncher's bow yawed twenty feet, as if Providence had pushed her. "Gawd A'mighty!" murmured Joe Byng, gazing open-mouthed at fifty feet of jagged rock that grinned up suddenly three waves away.
"Now," cried Captain Armstrong, who was fully convinced of the character of the stranger, "give it them, but aim high at the rigging. Fire!" We yawed, so that our guns could be brought to bear on the stranger. Every shot seemed to tell, and several of her spars were seen to come tumbling down on deck. Then once more we were after her, and again, when a little nearer, another broadside was fired.
At length we could clearly count her ports, and she appeared in the pure atmosphere even nearer than perhaps she was. Suddenly she yawed. A white puff of smoke was seen, and a shot came whizzing across our bows. Another followed. It struck us, and the yellow splinters were seen flying from our sides. The men stood at their quarters ready to begin the fight.
But Herod was 'infirm of purpose, and a beautiful fiend was at his side, and she had an iron will sharpened to an edge by hatred, and knew her own mind, which was murder. Between them, the weaker nature was much perplexed, and like a badly steered boat, yawed in its course, now yielding to the impulse from John, now to that from Herodias.
I expected every moment to hear our captain give the word to fire, but he refrained from doing so. Suspicious as was the behaviour of our pursuer, still I thought it possible that, after all, she might be a King's ship, and had shown her proper colours. Presently, however, she yawed, her studding-sails fluttering as she did so, being almost taken back.
The cruiser immediately yawed wildly, and in another minute would have crashed into the gun-runner, probably sending both craft to the bottom, had not Jim seized the wheel, as it spun out of the dead man's fingers, and brought the Angamos back to her course just in the nick of time.
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