THE LAST SHOT.

The ten minutes that elapsed before I reached the door of the Hall seemed to be protracted to an age, and were spent in an agony of mind no pen can describe. Oh! to be thus deceived—to part from Annette as we had parted—to think of her by day and dream of her by night—to look forward to our meeting with a thrill of hope, and strive to win renown that I might shed a lustre around my bride—and then, after all my toils, and hopes, and struggles, to come back and find her wedded—God of heaven! it was too much. But, notwithstanding my agony, my pride revolted at the display of any outward emotion. I would not for worlds that Annette should know the torture her faithlessness had inflicted on my bosom. No! I would smooth my brow, subdue my tongue, and control my every look. I would jest, smile, and be the gayest of the gay. I would wish Annette and her husband a long and happy life, and no one should suspect that, under my assumed composure, I wore a heart rankling with a wound that no time nor circumstance could cure. I resolved to see Annette, to play my part to the end, and then, returning to my post, to find an honorable death on the first deck we should surmount. My reflections, however, were cut short by the stoppage of the vehicle before the door of the mansion. A servant hastened to undo the coach steps, and, nerving myself for the interview that was at hand, I stepped out. The man’s face was strange to me, and I saw that it displayed some embarrassment.

“Will you announce me to Mr. St. Clair,” I said, “as Lieutenant Cavendish?”

“Mr. St. Clair, I regret to say,” replied the man politely, “is not at the Hall. The carriages have just driven off, and if they had not taken the back road through the park, would have met you in the avenue. Mr. St. Clair accompanies the bride and groom on a two weeks’ tour.”

My course was at once taken; and, as the criminal feels a lightening of the heart when reprieved, so I experienced a relief in escaping the trying experiment of mingling with the bridal party. Hastily re-ascending the carriage steps, I left my name with the servant, and ordering the coachman to drive off, left Pomfret Hall, with the resolution never again to return. At the village I paused a few minutes to indite a letter to Mr. St. Clair, in which I regretted my inopportune arrival, and wished a long life of happiness to him and to Annette. Then, re-entering the coach, I threw myself back on the seat, and, while I was being whirled away from Pomfret Hall, gave myself up to the most bitter reflections. As I now and then looked out of the window and recognized familiar objects along the road, I contrasted my present despondency with the hope that had thrilled my heart when I passed them a few hours before. Then, every pulse beat faster with delicious anticipations: now, I scarcely wished for more than an honorable death. At length my thoughts took a turn, and I reviewed the past, calling to mind every little word and act of Annette, from which I could draw either hope or despair.

“Fool that I was,” I exclaimed, “to think that the wealthy heiress could stoop to love a penniless officer. And yet,” I continued, “my fathers were as noble as hers, aye! and enjoyed wealth and honors to which the St. Clairs never aspired.” But again a revulsion came across my feelings, and I said, “Oh! Annette, Annette, could you but know my misery, you might have paused. But God grant you may find a heart as true to you as mine.” Thus harassed by contending emotions, now giving way to my love, and now yielding to indignation and pride, I spent the day, and when at night, preparatory to retiring, I happened to cast a look into the mirror, I started back at my haggard appearance. But there are moments of agony which do the work of years.

My messmates, one and all, were astonished at my speedy return, but luckily it had been determined to put to sea at once, so that if I had remained at Pomfret Hall until the expiration of my leave of absence I should have lost the cruise. One or two of my companions, who prided themselves on their superior intelligence, gave me the credit of having, by some unknown means, heard of the change in our day of sailing, and so hastened my return to my post. They little dreamed of the true cause, for to them, as to all others, I wore the same mask of assumed gaiety.

We sailed in company with The Arrow, but, ere we had been out a week, were separated from our consort. Our orders were, in such an emergency, to make the best of our way southward, and rendezvous at St. Domingo.

I had turned in one night, after having kept watch on deck until midnight, when, in the midst of a refreshing sleep, I was suddenly awoke by a hand laid on my shoulder, at the same time that a voice said⁠—

“Hist! Cavendish; don’t talk in your sleep.”

I started to my feet, but, for a moment, my faculties were in such a whirl that the dream in which I had been reveling, mingling with the scene before my waking senses, confused and bewildered me so that I knew not what I uttered.

“St. Clair! Pomfret Hall! why your wits are wool gathering, my dear fellow,” said the doctor—for I now recognised my old friend—“of what have you been dreaming? You look as if you thought me a spectre sent to call you from Paradise.”

I had indeed been dreaming. I fancied I was far away, wandering amid the leafy shades of Pomfret Hall with Annette leaning on my arm, and ever and anon gazing up into my face with looks of unutterable love. I heard the rustle of the leaves, the jocund song of the birds, and the soothing sound of the woodland waterfall, but sweeter, aye! a thousand times sweeter than all these, came to my ears the low whisper of my affianced bride. Was I not happy? And we sat down on a verdant bank, and, with her hand clasped in mine, and her fair head resting on my bosom, we talked of the happiness which was in store for us, and projected a thousand plans for the future. From visions like this I awoke to the consciousness that Annette was lost to me forever, and that even now the smiles and caresses of which I had dreamed were being bestowed upon another. A pang of keenest agony, a sharp, sudden pang, as if an icebolt had shot through my heart, almost deprived me for a moment of utterance, and I was fain to lean against a timber for support. But this weakness was only momentary, for, rallying every energy, I conquered my feelings, though not so soon but that the doctor saw my emotion.

“Are you sick, my dear fellow?” he said anxiously. “No! well, you do look better now. But I came to inform you that as rake-helly a looking craft as ever you saw is dogging us to windward, and the Lord only knows whether we wont all be prisoners, and mayhap dead men, before night.”

I hurried on my clothes, and, following him to the deck, saw, at the first glance, that the good doctor’s fears respecting the strange sail were not without foundation. She was a sharp, low brig, with masts raking far aft, and a spread of canvass towering from her decks sufficient to have driven a sloop of war. The haze of the morning had concealed her from sight until within the last five minutes; but now the broad disc of the sun, rising majestically behind her, brought out her masts, tracery and hull in bold and distinct relief. When first discovered, she was within long cannon shot, but standing off to windward. She altered her course immediately, however, on perceiving us, and was already closing. She carried no ensign, but there was that in her crowded decks and jaunty air which did not permit me to doubt a moment as to her character.

“A rover, by ——,” said the skipper, who had been scrutinizing the strange sail through a glass; “and she is treble our force,” he continued, in a whisper to me. “We have no choice, either, but to fight.”

I shook my head, for it was evident that escape was impossible.

“She sails like a witch, too,” I replied, in the same low tone, “and would overhaul us, no matter what her position might be.”

“I wish we were a dozen leagues away,” said the captain, shrugging his shoulders, “there is little honor and no profit in fighting these cut-throats, and if we are whipt, as we shall be, they will slit our windpipes as if we were so many sheep in a slaughter-house. Bah!”

“Not so,” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “we will die sword in hand. Since these murderers have crossed our path we must, if every thing else fail, suffer them to board us, and then blow the schooner out of water. I myself will fire the train.”

“Now, by the God above us, you speak as a brave man should, and shame my momentary disgust, for fear I will not call it. No, Jack Merrivale never wanted courage, however prudence might have been lacking. But little did I think that you, Cavendish, would ever show less prudence than myself, as you have to-day. You seem a changed man.”

“I am one,” I exclaimed; “but that is neither here nor there. When once yon freebooter gets alongside, Harry Cavendish will not be behindhand in doing his duty.”

My superior, at any other time, could not have failed to notice the excitement under which I spoke, but now his mind was too fully occupied to give my demeanor a second thought, and our conversation was cut short by a ball from the pirate, which, whistling over our heads, plumped into the sea some fathoms distant. At the same instant a mass of dark bunting shot up to the gaff of the brig, and, slowly unrolling, blew out steadily in the breeze, disclosing a black flag, unrelieved by a single emblem. But we well knew the meaning of that ominous ensign.

“He taunts us with his accursed flag,” said the skipper energetically; “by the Lord that liveth, he shall feel that freemen know how to defend their lives and honor. Call aft the men, and then to quarters. We will blow yon scoundrels out of water, or die on the last plank.”

Never did I listen to more vehement, more soul-stirring eloquence than that which rolled, like a tide of fire, from the captain’s lips when the men had gathered aft. Every eye flashed with indignation, every bosom heaved with high and noble daring, as he pointed impetuously to the foe and asked if there was one who heard him that wished to shrink from the contest. To his impassioned appeal they answered with a loud huzza, brandishing their cutlasses above their heads and swearing to stand by him to the last.

“I know it, my brave boys—I remember how you fought the privateer’s men,” for most of his old crew had re-entered, “but yonder cut-throats are still more deceitful and blood-thirsty. We have nothing to hope for from them but a short shrift and the yard-arm. We fight, not for our country and property alone, but for our lives also. The little Falcon has struck down too many prizes already, to show the coward’s feather now. Let us make these decks slippery with our best blood rather than surrender. Stand by me, if they board us, and—my word on it—the survivors will long talk of this glorious day. And now, my brave lads, splice the main-brace, and then to quarters.”

Another cheer followed the close of this harangue, when the men gathered at their quarters, each one as he passed to his station receiving a glass of grog. As I ran my eye along the decks, and saw the stalwart frames and flashing eyes of the crew, I felt assured that the day was destined to be desperately contested; and when I thought of the vast odds against which we had to contend, and the glorious deeds which this superiority would make room for, I experienced an exultation which I cannot describe. The time for which, in the bitterness of my heart, I had prayed, was come; and I resolved to dare things this day which, if they ever reached the ears of Annette, should prove to her that I died the death of a gallant soldier. The thought that, perhaps, she might regret me when I was gone, was sweeter to me than the song of many waters.

Little time, however, was left for such emotions, for scarcely had the men taken their stations when the pirate, who had hitherto been manœuvering for a favorable position and only occasionally firing a shot, opened his batteries on us, discharging his guns in such quick succession that his sides seemed one continuous blaze, and his tall masts were to be seen reeling backwards from the shock of his broadside. Instantaneously the iron tempest came hurtling across us, and for a space I was bewildered by the rending of timbers, the falling of spars, and the agonizing shrieks of the wounded. The main-top-mast came rattling to the deck with all its hamper at the very moment that a messmate fell dead beside me. For a few minutes all was consternation and confusion. So rapid had been the discharges, and so well aimed had been each shot, that, in the twinkling of an eye, we saw ourselves almost a wreck on the water, and comparatively at the mercy of our foe.

“Clear away this hamper,” shouted the skipper, “stand to your guns forward there, and give it to the pirate.”

With the word the two light pieces and the gun amidships opened on the now rapidly closing foe; but the metal of all except the swivel was so light that it did no perceptible damage on the thick-ribbed hull of our antagonist. The ball from the long eighteen, however, swept the decks of the foe, and appeared to have carried no little havoc in its course. But the broadside did not check the approach of the rover. His object was manifestly to run us afoul and board us. Steadily, therefore, he maintained his course, swerving scarcely a hair’s breadth at our discharge, but keeping right on as if scorning our futile efforts to check his progress. We did not, however, intermit our exertions. Although crippled we were not disheartened—despairing, we entertained no thought of submission, but rallying around our guns, we fought them like lions at bay, firing with such rapidity that our decks, and the ocean around, soon came to be almost obscured in the thick fleecy veil of smoke that settled slowly on the water. Every few minutes a ball from the pirate whizzed by in our immediate vicinity, or crashed among our spars; but the increasing clouds of vapor, clinging about the pathway of our foe as well as of ourselves, made his fire naturally less deadly than at first. For a short space we even lost sight of our antagonist, and the gunners paused, uncertain where to fire; but suddenly the lofty spars of the pirate were seen riding above the white fog, scarcely a pistol shot from us, and in another minute, with a deafening crash, the rover ran us aboard, his bowsprit jamming in our fore-rigging as he approached us head on. Almost before we could recover from our surprise we heard a stern voice crying out in the Spanish tongue for boarders, and immediately a dark mass of ruffians gathered, like a cluster of bees, on the bowsprit of the foe, with cutlasses brandished aloft, preparatory to a descent on our decks.

“Rally to repel boarders!” thundered the skipper, springing forward, “ho! beat back the bloodhounds from your decks,” and with the word, he made a blow at a desperado who, at that moment, sprang into the fore-rigging; when my superior drew back his sword it was red with the heart’s blood of the assailant, who, falling heavily backwards with a dull plash, squatted a second on the water, like a wounded water-fowl, and then sank forever. For a single breath his companions stood appalled, and then, with a savage yell, leaping on our decks, fiercely attacked our little band. In vain our gallant tars disputed every inch of ground—in vain one after another of the assailants dyed the deck with his blood—in vain by word and deed the skipper incited the crew to almost gigantic exertions; nothing could resist the overpowering tide of assailants which poured on in an unremitting stream from the brig, bearing down every thing before it as an avalanche from the hills. Step by step our brave lads were steadily forced backwards, until at length the whole forecastle was in possession of the foe, and a solid mass of freebooters was advancing on the starboard side of the open main-hatch, in eager pursuit of the retreating crew. I had foreseen this result to the conflict, and instead, therefore, of aiding to repel the boarders, had been engaged in loading one of the lighter guns with grape, and dragging it around, so as to command this very path;—a duty which I had been enabled to perform unnoticed by either party in the fierce excitement of the mêlée. I had hardly masked my little battery, and not three minutes had elapsed from the first onset of the boarders, when my messmates came driving towards me, as I have described, beaten in by the solid masses of the enemy. Already the fugitives had passed the hatchway, and the foremost desperados of the assailing column were even now within three feet of the muzzle of my gun, when I signed to my confederate to jerk off the tarpaulin which had masked our piece. The pirates started back in horror when they saw their peril, but I gave them no time to escape. Quick as lightning I applied the match, and the whole fiery cataract was belched upon them. Language cannot depict the fearful havoc of that discharge. The hurricane of fire and shot mowed its way lengthwise, through the narrow and crowded column, scattering the dying and the dead beneath its track, as a whirlwind uproots the forest trees; while groans, and imprecations, and shrieks of anguish rent the air, drowning the sounds of the explosion, and the crashing of the grape, amongst its victims.

“Now charge!” I shouted, as if seized with a sudden frenzy, springing into the very midst of the foe, “charge them, my gallant braves, and sweep the murderers from the deck. No quarter to the knaves! Hew them to the brisket,” and following every word with a blow, and seconded by our men who seemed to catch my fury, we made such havoc among those of the pirates whom the grape had spared, that, astonished, paralized, disconcerted, and finally struck with mortal fear, they fled wildly from the schooner, some regaining their craft by the bowsprit, some plunging overboard and swimming to her, and some leaping headlong into the deep never to rise again. Seizing an axe, and springing forward, I hastily cut our hamper loose from the foe, and with the next swell the two vessels slowly parted.

“Now to your guns, my men,” shouted the skipper, unconscious of a dangerous wound, in the excitement of the moment, “give it to them before they can rally to their quarters. Fire!”

We poured in our broadsides like hail, riddling even the solid sides of our foe, and making his decks slippery with blood, and all this before the discomfited freebooters could rally to their guns and return our shots. Our men, fired with an enthusiasm which approached to madness, loaded with a speed that seems to me now incredible, and the third broadside was shaking every timber of our little craft, before a solitary gun was discharged in reply from the pirate.

“Ah! he has woke up at last,” said my old friend, the captain of our long Tom, “and she may yet regain the day if we don’t fight like devils. Bring me that shot from the galley.”

“In God’s name, what do you mean?” said I, as he coolly sat down by his piece. “In with the ball and let the rover have it—not a moment is to be lost.”

“Aye! I knows that, leftenant; and here comes the settler for which I waited,” he exclaimed, as the cook brought a red-hot shot from the galley, “I thought I’d venture on a little experiment of my own, and I’ve seen ’em do wonders with these fiery comets afore now. There—there she has it,” he exclaimed, as the shot was sent home, “now God have mercy on them varmint’s souls.”

From some strange, unaccountable presentiment, I stepped mechanically backward and cast an eye at the brig, which had now floated to some distance. As I did so, a trail of fire glanced before my sight, and I saw the simmering shot enter her side. Thought was not quicker than the explosion which followed, shaking the sea beneath and the sky above, and almost deafening the ear with its unearthly concussion, while instantaneously a gush of flame shot far up into the sky; the masts of the vessel were lifted perpendicularly upwards, and the whole air was filled with shattered timbers and mangled human bodies that fell the next minute pattering around us into the deep. Oh God! the fearful sight! The shrieks of the wounded and drowning—the awful struggles of the poor wretches in the water—the sullen cloud that settled over the scene of death, will they ever pass away from my memory? But I drop a veil over a sight too horrible to recount. Suffice it to say, of all the rover’s crew, not one survived to see that sun go down. A few we picked up with our boats, but they died ere night. The cause of the explosion is soon told. The brig’s magazine had been struck and fired by our LAST SHOT.