in exasperation. 'How can I fight? She carries twice my guns, and, if it comes to boarding, her men outnumber mine by ten to one or more.'
'You will run, then?'
'How can I run? She has twice my canvas.' Bransome was grim.
In the waist some of the hands newly descended from aloft were shading their eyes to survey the distant ship, but idly, without suspicion yet of her identity.
De Bernis returned to the study of her through the telescope. He spoke presently with the glass still to his eye. 'For all her canvas, her sailing's laboured,' he pronounced. 'She's been overlong at sea. Her bottom's foul. That's plain.' He lowered the glass again. 'In your place, Captain, I should come a point or two nearer to the wind. You'ld beat up against it a deal more nimbly than will she in her present stale condition.'
The advice seemed to exasperate Bransome. 'But whither will that lead me? The nearest landfall on that course is Porto Rico, and that over two hundred miles away.'
'What matter? If this breeze holds, she'll never gain on you to windward. She'll sail her worst close-hauled. You may even outsail her. But if you do no more than keep the present distance, you are safe.'
'That's if the breeze holds. And who's to warrant me the breeze'll hold? It's an unnatural wind for this time o' year.' He swore again in his frenzy of indecision. 'If I was to go about, and run for Dominica again? It's none so far, and safest, after all.'
'But it's down wind, and down wind, with all her canvas spread, she'll overhaul you quickly for all her foulness.'
Bransome, however, was rendered obstinate by panic, and another hope had come to vitiate his reasoning. 'Towards Dominica we're likeliest to meet other shipping.' Without waiting for the Frenchman's answer, he stepped to the poop-rail and bawled an order to the quartermaster at the whipstaff to put down the helm.
And now it was de Bernis who departed from his calm. He rapped out an oath in his vexation at this folly, and began an argument which Bransome cut short with the reminder that it was he who commanded aboard the Centaur. He would listen to advice; but he would take no orders.
With a lurching plunge the Centaur luffed alee, then came even on her keel and raced south before the wind.
The seamen in the waist, who had fallen agape at this abrupt manoeuvre, were ordered aloft again to unfurl, not only the topsails which they had just come down from furling, but also the topgallants. Even as they sprang to the ratlines, in obedience, the great black ship, now left astern on the larboard quarter, was seen to alter her course and swing in pursuit, thus dispelling any possible doubt that might have lingered on the score of her intentions.
At once it became clear aboard the Centaur that they were running before an enemy. Unaccountably, as il seemed, realization spread through the ship. The hands came tumbling from the forecastle in alarm, and stood about the hatch-coaming in the waist, staring and muttering.
Bransome, now on the quarter-deck, whither de Bernis had followed him, remained a long while with the telescope to his eye. When at last he lowered it, he displayed a face of consternation, from which most of the habitual ruddy colour had departed.
'You was right,' he confessed. 'She's overhauling us fast. We'll do better, though, when the topsails are spread. But even so we'll never make Dominica before that hell-hound is on our rudder. What's to do, Mossoo? Shall I go about again?'
In the obvious urgency of his need, humbled by the realization that if he had taken de Bernis' advice in the first instance, he would now be in better case, he appealed again to that experienced fighting seaman.
Monsieur de Bernis took time to answer. He was plunged in thought, a heavy frown between narrowed eyes. Bransome assumed him to be making mental calculations, and the assumption seemed confirmed when the Frenchman spoke.
'It is too late,' he said at last. 'Consider the time you would lose, and the way, whilst she with the weather-gauge of you, would need to veer but a point or two so as to steer athwart your hawse. No, Captain. You are committed to your present course. It means now that you must not only run, but fight.'
'God of Heaven! In what case am I to fight? To fight such a ship as that?'
'I've seen victory snatched against longer odds.'
Bransome took heart from the other's grim calm. 'And, anyhow,' said he 'with his back to the wall, a man has no choice but to fight, no matter the odds. Have ye anything in mind, Mossoo?'
Thus plainly invited, Monsieur de Bernis became brisk and authoritative.
'What hands do you muster?'
'Twenty-six all told, including quartermaster and bo'sun. Leach'll have three hundred or more.'
'Therefore, he must be allowed no chance to board us. Give me charge of your guns, and I'll show you how a main deck should be fought, so long as you provide me with the chance to fight it.'
The Captain's gloom was further lightened. 'I'm in luck, at least, in having you aboard, Monsieur de Bernis.'
'I hope it may prove as lucky for me in the end,' was the sardonic answer.
He summoned Pierre, the half-caste, from the bulkhead below against which he was leaning, awaiting his master's orders.
'Tiens, mon fils.' Monsieur de Bernis stripped off the sky-blue coat he was wearing, the fine cambric shirt with its delicate ruffles, his hat, his periwig, his shoes and stockings, delivering all to Pierre with orders to bestow them in his cabin. Then, naked above the waist, displaying a lean, muscular brown torso, and with a scarf tied about his cropped head, he was ready to take the command of the gun-deck which Bransome so very gladly made over to him.
By this time the crew was fully aware of what was coming. The steadiness of the men, displayed when Sproat, the bo'sun, piped them to their quarters, was at least encouraging.
Eight of them, with Purvey, the master-gunner, were told off to compose a gun-crew. Captain Bransome addressed them briefly. He informed them that Monsieur de Bernis would take command on the gun-deck, and that it was upon the gun-deck that this fight would be fought, so that the safety of all was in their hands.
Monsieur de Bernis, now sharply authoritative, ordered them at once below to clear the gun-tackles, to load and run out the guns. Before following, he had a last word with the Captain. Standing by the ornately carved rail of the quarter-deck, at the head of the companion, he spoke incisively.
'You've placed the responsibility on us. I will do my part. You may depend on that. But it rests with you to give me the opportunity of doing it. Here timorousness, caution, will not serve. The odds are heavily against us in this gamble. That we must accept. We stake all--your ship, our lives--upon a lucky shot or two between wind and water. Handle your ship so as to give me every chance of it you can. You will have to take great risks. But take them boldly. Audacity, then, Captain! All the audacity you can command.'
Bransome nodded. His face was set, his air resolute. 'Aye, aye,' he answered.
Monsieur de Bernis' bold dark eyes pondered him a moment, and approved him. A glance aloft, where every stitch of canvas now wooed the breeze, a glance astern, over the larboard quarter where the pursuing ship came ploughing after them, and de Bernis went down the companion and crossed the waist, to lower himself through an open scuttle to the deck below.
He
