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Some of the seamen stowed the hammocks on the rail to serve as a guard against shot and splinters, others triced up stout netting fore and aft, as a protection against boarders. The light and agile sail-trimmers rove extra slings on the yards, and put stoppers on the more important rigging, and tightened and strengthened the boats' gripes.
Just at that moment the captain, who was busy with his spyglass examining the place and looking for a snug anchorage, suddenly gave an order, which was passed on, and with the rapidity customary on board a man-of-war, the stout boarding nettings, ready for use on an emergency, were triced up to the lower rigging, so that before long the vessel, from its bulwarks high up toward the lower yards, presented the appearance of a cage.
She protested that she knew nothing; but, having been triced up by the wrists joined behind her back, she soon came to reason, and cried out that, if the magistrate would release her hands, she would confess all.
We would be staggering under a whole main-sail, when the other smacks had three reefs in theirs; and it was odds but we had one line of reef-points triced up, when our neighbours would be going at it under storm-trysail and storm-jib. He worked the Lively Nan hard, he did, did Captain Goss.
That was why Sheldon did not have to do it, for when he had counted one, Astoa reached out his hand and took the whip. And right well Astoa laid on the whip, angered at his fellows for not supporting him and venting his anger with every stroke. From the veranda Sheldon egged him on to strike with strength, till the two triced savages screamed and howled while the blood oozed down their backs.
The ringleader, Forrest, was then triced up in the mizen-rigging, "two hours on and two off," to await the punishment of his crimes. The next day brought a fresh vision of the Stars and Stripes, but this time from the mizen-peak of a heavily-armed steamer, which appeared early in the morning, standing in towards the harbour.
The casualties were rapidly multiplying on both sides, yet we were slowly driving the Frenchmen forward, when they were unexpectedly reinforced by a crowd of at least sixty people who had come alongside in boats from the other craft, boarding on the larboard side of the schooner, on which side, as it had been impossible for us to reach it with the Felicidad, the nettings had not been triced up, and in an instant we found ourselves confronted by overwhelming odds.
"Steady; so that's right for the stern of the leeward vessel." We were within two cable lengths of the privateers, who still remained hove-to within half a cable's length of each other. They were very large schooners, full of men, with their boarding netting triced up, and showing a very good set of teeth; as it afterwards proved, one mounted sixteen, and the other two fourteen, guns.
Send out a messenger and summon them all here at dawn, bidding them bring provision with them, and what bows and arms they have. Set a watch also, and after the Father and the messenger have gone, command that the drawbridge be triced." "What do you fear?" he asked, waking from his dream.
Before long a stranger was seen approaching, and the other vessels being at a distance, she mistook the Duke for her consort, the galleon lately captured, and allowed Captain Rogers to get up to her. He attacked her gallantly, but she was heavily armed and strongly manned, and, before he could venture to run alongside, had triced up her boarding nettings.
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