Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1916-05-02
CHAPTER xxi.

when we hove to, hasty though or
DERBY confusion reigned. The boats
came aboard from every side at once.
AS fast as the prisoners came over
the rail they were marshaled forward
into the forecastle by our hunters,
while our sailors hoisted in the boats
pell-mell, dropping them anywhere up-
on the deck and not stopping to lash
them. We were already under way, all
sails set and drawing, and the sheets
being Stacked off for wind abeam, as
the last boat lifted clear of the water
Ind swung in the tackles.
There was need for haste. The
Macedonia, belching the blacklist of
smoke from her funnel, was charging
down upon US from out of the north
east. Neglecting the boats that re-
NAMED to her, she had altered her
course so as to anticipate ours. She
was not running straight for us, but
ahead of us. Our courses were con-
verging like the sides of an angle, the
vertex of which was at the edge of the
fog-bank. 1t was there, or not at all
that the Macedonia could hope to catch
us. The hope for the Ghost lay in
that she should pass that point before
the Macedonia arrived at it.
Better get your rifles, you fellows"
Wolf Larsen called to our hunters;
and the five men lined the lee rail-
guns in hand, and waited.
The Macedonia was now but a mile
away, the black smoke pouring from
her funnel at a right angle, so madly
she raced, pounding through the sea at
seventeen-knot gait Sky-hooting
through the brine," as Wolf Larsen
quoted while gazing at her. We were
not making more than nine knots, but
the fog-bank was very near.
A puff of smoke broke from the
Macedonia's deck, we heard a heavy
report, and a round hole took form in
the stretched canvas of our mainsail
They were shooting at US with one of
the small cannon which rumor had
said they carried on board. Our men,
clustering amidships, waved their
hats and raised derisive cheer Again
there was puff of smoke and loud
report, this time the cannon ball strik-
ing not more than twenty feet astern
and glancing twice from sea to sea to
windward ere it sank.
But there was no rif1e-fring for the
reason that all their hunters were out
in the boats or our prisoners. When
the two vessels were half a mile apart,
a third shot made another hole in our
mainsail. Then we entered the fog. 1t
was about us, yelling and hiding us in
| its dense wet gauZe.
The sudden transition was startling.
The moment before we had been leap
ing through the sunshine, the clear
sky above us, the sea breaking and
| rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship,
vomiting smoke and fire and iron mis-
siles. rushing madly upon US. And at
| once, as in an instant's leap. the sun
was blOtted out, there was no sky,
even our mastheads were lost to view,
and our horizon was such as tear-blind-
ed eyes may see.
1t was weird, strangely weird.
| looked at Maud Brewster and knew
that she was similarly affected. Then
looked at Wolf Larsen, but there was
nothing subjective about his state of
| consciousness. His whole concern was
with the immediate, objective present.
! He still held the wheel, and felt that
he was timing time. reckoning the
passage of the minutes with each for
ward lunge and leeward roll Of the
| Ghost.
Go for'ard and hard-aIee without
any noise" he said to me in low
voice. "Clew up the topsails first. Set
men at all the sheets. Let there be no
rafting of blocks. no sound of voices.
No noise, understand. no noise"
When all was ready. the word hard
alec" was passed forward to me from
man to man; and the Ghost heeled
about on the port tack with practically
no noise at all. And what little there
was-the slapping of a few recipients
and the creaking of a sheave in block
or two-was ghostly under the hollow
echoing pail in which we were
swathed.
We had scarcely filled away, it
seemed. when the fog thinned abruptly
and we were again in the sunshine, the
wide-stretching sea breaking before US
| TO the skyline. But the ocean was