Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1907-01-17
THE IRON PIRATE
A Plain Tale Of Strange
Happenings on The Sea
BY MAX PEMBERTON


Men,, | said, there's ugly work over
there. work | can make nothing off but
it's clear that an English ship is running
from foreigner, and may want help.
Shall we leave her, or sh,f we stand by?'
They gave a great shout at this, and
the skipper touched the bell, which stop
| ped our engines. GlasS-s were turned
| upon us from the decks of the yellow ship.
and from the Ocean King, whose men
were still busy with the signal flags, and
this time, as we made out, in direct re-
quest to us that we should stand by. |
watched the captain of the steamer par
leyng with the men in the launch below
him.
While a tall man with fair hair-my.
glass gave me the impression that he was
the fellow known as Roaring john
stood in the bows of the launch, and ap-
peared to be gesticulating wildly to the
skipper of the Ocean King, the nameess
ship set up of sudden a great shrieking
with her deck whistle, which she blew
three times with terrihc power and at
the third sound of it the launch, which
had been holding to the side of the steam
er, let CO. running rapidly back to the arm
ed vessel, where it was taken aboard
again.
The whole thing was done in so short
a space of time that our men scarce had
opportunity to express surprise when the
launch was hanging at the davits again.
The great activity that we had observed
on the decks of the war vessel ceased as
mysteriously as it had begun. She bound
ed past US at speed the like to which
| hn6 tha
So remarkable face-about seemed to
dumbfound our men. But the key to the
riddle was given. not by one of them,
but by Paolo, whom now found at my
elbow
"Ha :" he cried, "shes American !"
| saw what troubled him. There was
a great white. steamer coming up at a
high speed, and knew the form of her
at once, and of two others that. followed
her. She wos Qne vi the American navy |
The secret of the fight was no longer in
explicable; the yellow ship had fled from
the trap into which she was SO nearly |
falling.
"Gou have sharp eyes, Paolo," said l
Il imagine it's lucky for the pair of u.s."
The nameess ship, of a sudden, ceased |
her flight, and came almost to a stand
some half mile away On our port bow.
AS she swung round TO head the seas,
saw at once that another cruiser. long
and white, and seemingly well armed had
come up upon that side, and now barred
Ter passage. ..
The nameless ship hau now hundreds of
men about her decks, and these were at
he machine guns and elsewhere active in
preparation. The great hull swung round
slowly and passed at a moderate speed
1ast the bow of the other When she
vas nearly clear, her two great guns
we're fired almost simultaneously, and, as
he shells swept along the deck of the
'ruiser, they carried men and masts and
leck houses with them, in one awful con-
usion of wreckage and of death. The
,ruiser was utterly unprepared for the
reachery, and lay reeling on the sea as
Ter opponent treated her to the hail of
Ter machine guns.
The battle could have ended but in one
way, had not the other American war
ships now come so close to us that they
opened fire with their great guns. The
huge shells hissed over our heads, and all
about us. The captain of the nameless
snip ITeu TWICE from HIS luTrpCS, ana tlen
headed off at prodigous speed. In five
minutes he was out of gunshot; in ten,
he American vessels were taking men
rom their crippled cruiser, whose antago-
lists had almost disappeared on the hori-
.on
Upon our own decks the noise and hub
)ub were almost deafenng. We put out
/ boat with ease upon the still sea and
nailed the passenger steamer after twenty J
minutes stout rowing She SaHn