CHAPTER XXIII.

During the short time I was in the water, a desperate fight was going on aboard the Arrow. Johnson, seeing how matters were turning out, rallied his men for a stand.

Five boats from the man-o’-war, filled with blue-jackets, armed and ready for the fight, drew alongside before the convicts could get the ship out of irons. She lay with her yards aback, and those who worked intelligently had their work undone by those who in their frantic haste worked like maniacs.

The boarders from the first small boat fastened to the mizzen channels, and, as they did so, Johnson dropped a mass of iron weighing two hundred pounds into the boat’s bottom, tearing her open. She filled at once and sank before the men could climb aboard. Benson, though desperately wounded from my knife, managed to get hauled back{258} aboard by willing hands. He joined the crowd aft, and, holding to the taffrail for support, fired a double-barrelled gun with deadly effect into the approaching boats. A sailor fired at him with a rifle, and the bullet tore a hole through his chest, but he staggered back to his place at the rail and fought on. Two of the best, or rather worst, men in the gang used cutlasses with effect upon the men who crowded over the rail in the waist. An officer engaged one of these in single combat and for a short time there was a bit of sword-play. Then a sailor coming in from the starboard side smote the villain over the head with his cutlass butt and stretched him out for further orders.

Benson rallied the few followers aft, and together they forced a passage along that deck, with himself and Johnson leading. They joined the mass of men forward and crowded under the topgallant forecastle for a last stand. Within the slanting peak of the ship, and covered from attack above, they fought with a desperation that called forth all that was in the crew of the man-of-war.{259} An officer led a charge upon the huddled villains, and fired again and again into their leader, who received no less than five bullet-wounds, any one of which would have let the life out of an ordinary man. But Benson still fought on.

The convicts, being badly armed and improperly drilled, fought at a disadvantage. The ranking officer of the boat crews formed his men in line behind those fighting in the press and then called a retreat. The advanced men fell slowly back, and the convicts were loth to follow and leave their shelter. Then the sailors fired a volley point-blank into the crowd. This was more than the ordinary man could stand, and many wounded threw down their arms and came out to surrender. But not Benson.

The leader, seeing that there was no hope, hurled his empty gun at the men in uniform. Then he seized a cutlass, and walked staggering and swaying toward the line of levelled rifles. One or two men fired and a bullet hit him upon the head, passing through and flinging him half-way around.{260} He fell upon his hands and knees, but tried to raise himself, a ghastly sight. Three or four times he almost staggered to his feet, blinded, half-insensible, and dying, and then a man mercifully struck him upon the neck with his cutlass. His fight was over.

Johnson still resisted, but, under cover of the guns of the rest, three men dragged him forth and passed a lashing about him. Then the fight ended. In a short time the wounded were lowered into the boats and sent aboard the gunboat, while a few sailors turned to and cleared up the decks of the Arrow. Several men of the gunboat’s crew were killed and several more badly wounded, and these latter were brought below to where Brown and I lay.

I now learned how the Arrow had been retaken after desperate resistance on the part of the convicts. The commander of the man-of-war, the Petrel, at first accused Brown and myself of being with the convicts in everything, and produced those papers we had written and signed to prove that they spoke the truth. But those papers did more{261} than anything we could do or say to clear us of the charge among our English friends, who were somewhat inclined at first to believe the statement of Johnson: that we only turned after being caught. Alice Waters’s statement did much to help our cause.

The result was that Captain Spencer and his officers treated Brown and myself with every consideration and abstained from passing any private judgment against us before we could be tried. He told us how he had sighted the Arrow about the same time we had the Petrel, and of his amazement when he saw us haul our wind and run up the Black Roger to our peak. He thought, of course, that the skipper of our craft was drunk and that the affair was intended as a practical joke to the gunboat. After we had gone through his lee with the American ensign flying he was afraid that he had already gone too far into the matter, and regretted his last shot, which had torn our foresail. He would have let us go, for the Arrow’s name was in his register, and he had not the faintest idea of the true state of{262} affairs on board. Having heard nothing of the Countess of Warwick, he had no reason to understand matters until after Brown and I had explained them. He put a prize crew on the clipper and sent her into the River Plate to be turned over to her agents at Buenos Ayres. When we reached England, Johnson made things look a little black for us at first. The villain had no scruples about perjuring himself to any extent, and he was backed by the rest of the ringleaders. But finally he and three of the latter were convicted of murder and piracy and hanged. The rest soon found themselves bound out on a voyage for the East. They never came back again.

Brown and I were cleared and sent back to the States, where we arrived safe enough, Brown’s leg having entirely healed and my chest having become sound again, except for a slight shortness of breath for awhile when I exerted myself.

The Petrel’s surgeon very gallantly informed me that I owed my complete recovery to a certain amount of very gentle nursing{263} I had received, and not entirely to my robust constitution. As he had done little more than prescribe for me and oversee the dressing of my wound, it was evident that he did not wish to take this obligation to himself.

As to the nursing, I quite agreed with him, for the three weeks spent in a bunk on board the Petrel were among the pleasantest of my existence—up to that time.

When Miss Waters and I separated at Portsmouth, it was understood that I should meet her again in the States. When I was released, after the trial, I found that she had already sailed for New York.

When Brown and I arrived there and had given an account of this disastrous voyage to Mr. Ropesend, it was only natural that I should inquire for the girl who had passed through so much along with us.

To my great surprise, the old merchant announced that he had heard nothing of her whatever since she arrived in England.

As soon as possible I hastened to the office of the line of vessels on which I had heard{264} she had sailed. I found that the vessel on which she had left England had arrived safely ten days since. Her name was on the passenger list, showing that she had arrived in America, but all my efforts to trace her beyond the point of landing were useless. She had disappeared and had left no clue that might aid any one to follow her.