Then, next, it would seem that from the far side of the _Etoyle_ the
diver of that ship must have been most quietly lowered into the water,
must have passed under our forefoot--I mean of the _Furie_--and thence
to the bullion room of the wreck, and so fastened the lines to the
chests that, with his own help below, they could easily get them up to
the _Etoyle_.
And then, when this was done, there was but to get up sail as quick as
possible, and away. And that was not so hard of accomplishing as a
sailor might think. For, firstly, the _Etoyle_ was not anchored, but
moored and made fast to the _Furie_, so that, while all were asleep
below, and while the master mate was murdered and gone, the
after-watch drunk and stupid, and the fore-watch a traitor and
conspirator, that Snow might very easily be unmoored. Therefore, it
was but to get up the sails and catch the fast rising morning breeze,
and so off and away. Moreover, so deeply was the plot laid, that, as
'twas found shortly, the door of the captain's cabin was made fast
from the outside, the ladder was set loose of the main hatch, so that,
when the men came tumbling up, it shifted, and they came tumbling down
instead, and two of the cannon's touch-holes were spiked. Yet, whoever
was the wretch who did all this, still was he a fool likewise, since
in his haste he had not spiked the cannon that gave on the bow from
which the _Etoyle_ must move, but on the other.
But now, as they brailed up their sails they could not disguise the
noise they made, and in a moment Phips heard them, being ever on the
alert, and was at his door, sword in one hand and pistol in the other,
to get out. And, said the bos'un to me, his cries were terrifying to
hear when he did discover how he was trapped. First he smashed with
his fists a panel, all the while he was roaring for his men to come
and set him free, and also for his poor dead master's mate, and then
he flung himself against the door with such fury that it gave way, and
out he came.
"He look't, sir," said the bos'un to me, as he told all this while we
were tearing through the water after the buccaneers, who I did see
sorrowfully were gaining on us, "he look't like a demoniac. And when
he saw that the _Etoyle_ was already under weigh, his rage was such as
mortal man might indeed fear to see."
It appeared from this man's account that Phips in his madness
discharged his pistol at Alderly, who was on the poop, and miss't him,
whereupon Alderly returned his fire, missing also; that next the
captain called for the gunner, who could not get his linstock ready
all at once, and by this time the sails of the _Etoyle_ had caught the
breeze and she was under weigh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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