Part 13 (2/2)

He dropped a question on that score to the captain, dispassionately, as though he were no more than an indifferently interested spectator, and with never a thought to his position aboard

”Should I be racing her afore the Wind if I as properly equipped?”

growled Leigh ”Am I the man to run before a Spaniard? As it is I do no more than lure her well away from land”

Sir Oliver understood, and was silent thereafter He observed a bo'sun and hisin the waist under loads of cutlasses and small arunner, a swarthy, massive fellow, stark to the waist with a faded scarf tied turban-wise about his head, leapt up the companion to the brass carronade on the larboard quarter, followed by a couple of his h called up the bo'sun, bade him take the wheel, and dispatched theprepared for action

Thereafter followed a spell of racing, the Spaniard ever lessening the distance between the astern until it was nosea Suddenly from the Spaniard appeared a little cloud of white sun followed, and after it cath ahead of the S's bows

Linstock in hand the brawny gunner on the poop stood ready to answer theunner's mate to report himself ready for action on the main-deck and to receive his orders

Caain across the bows of the S

”'Tis a clear invitation to heave to,” said Sir Oliver

The skipper snarled in his fiery beard ”She has a longer range than most Spaniards,” said he ”But I'll not waste powder yet for all that

We've none to spare”

Scarcely had he spoken when a third shot booh and a thud as theto the deck and in its fall stretched a couple of men in death

Battle was joined, it see in a hurry

”Hold there!” he roared to the gunner ung his linstock at thatway as a result of that curtailment of her mainmast, and the Spaniard came on swiftly now At last the skipper accounted her near enough, and gave the ith an oath The S fired her first and last shot in that encounter After the deafening thunder of it and through the cloud of suffocating sh forecastle of the Spaniard rent open

Master Leigh was cursing his gunner for having ainalled to the e

That second shot was to be the signal for the whole broadside from the main-deck below But the Spaniard anticipated thenalled the whole side of the Spaniard burst into flaered under the blow, recovered an instant, then listed oh ”She's bilging!” and Sir Oliver saw the Spaniard standing off again, as if satisfied hat she had done The un was never fired, nor was the broadside fro to the sea; within three minutes of it they were on a level with the water The S had received her death-blow, and she was settling down

Satisfied that she could do no further har the obvious result and intent upon picking up what slaves she could to alleys of his Catholic Majesty on the Mediterranean

Thus the fate intended Sir Oliver by Lionel was to be fulfilled; and it was to be shared by Master Leigh himself, which had not been at all in that venal fellow's reckoning

PART II SAKR-EL-BAHR

CHAPTER I THE CAPTIVE

Sakr-el-Bahr, the hawk of the sea, the scourge of the Mediterranean and the terror of Christian Spain, lay prone on the heights of Cape Spartel