“Deck, there!” The lookout at the fore-topgallant masthead was hailing. “There’s summat on the port bow, just in sight. Right in the eye of the sun. But it may be a ship, sir. A ship’s masts an’ yards, sir, with no sail set.”
It would be incredible that Ramsbottom had anchored here on this dangerous lee shore. But incredible things have to be done in war. Clorinda had long ago taken in her studding sails. Now after a sharp order from Fell, and five minutes’ activity on the part of her crew, she was gliding along under topsails and headsails alone. The sun sank into a bank of cloud, suffusing it with scarlet.
“Deck there! Two ships, sir. At anchor. One of ’em’s a brig, sir.”
A brig! Ramsbottom almost for certain. Now with the sun behind the cloud it was possible to train a telescope in the direction indicated. There they were, sharp and clear against the sunset, silhouetted in black against the scarlet cloud, the masts and yards of a ship and a brig at anchor. Sir Thomas was looking to Hornblower for orders.
“Approach as close as you consider advisable, if you please, Sir Thomas. And a boarding party ready to take possession.”
“An armed boarding party, My Lord?”
“As you please. He’ll never dare to oppose us by force.”
The guns of the brig were not run out, there were no boarding nettings rigged. In any case the little brig stood no chance in an unsheltered anchorage against a frigate.
“I’ll anchor if I may, My Lord.”
“Certainly.”
That was the Bride of Abydos, without a doubt. No mistaking her at all. And the other one? Most likely the Helmond. With the revolt of Maracaibo this part of the coast had fallen into the power of the insurgents. The batteries of field artillery that she had carried could be rafted ashore here – there was a beach in that little cove where it would be possible – and delivered to the insurgent army gathering for its march on Puerto Cabello. Ramsbottom, his task completed, would presumably be prepared to brazen it out, pleading – as Hornblower had already guessed – some privateering commission from Bolivar.
“I’ll go with the boarding party, Sir Thomas.”
Fell shot a questioning glance. Admirals had no business boarding strange craft from small boats, not only when bullets might fly, but when one of the infinite variety of accidents possible in small boats might lead to an elderly and not so active senior officer being dropped overside and never coming up again, with endless trouble later for the captain. Hornblower could follow Fell’s train of thought, but he was not going to wait quiescent on Clorinda’s quarterdeck until a report came back from the Bride of Abydos – not when a word would give him the power of finding out several minutes earlier.
“I’ll get your sword and pistols, My Lord,” said Gerard.
“Nonsense!” said Hornblower. “Look there!”
He had kept his telescope trained on the anchored ships, and had detected a significant activity around them. Boats were pulling hastily away from both of them and heading for the shore. Ramsbottom seemed to be absconding.
“Come along!” said Hornblower.
He ran to the ship’s side and leaped for the boat’s falls; sliding down, clumsily, cost him some of the skin from his soft palms.
“Cast off! Pull!” he ordered as Gerard tumbled in beside him. “Pull!”
The boat swung away from the ship’s side, soared giddily up a swell and down again, the men throwing their weight on the oars. But the boat that was leaving the Bride of Abydos was not being handled in the man-o’-war fashion one would have expected of Ramsbottom. The oars were being plied without any co-ordination; the boat swung round on the swell, and then as somebody caught a crab swung round again. In next to no time Hornblower found himself alongside the struggling craft. The men at the oars were not the spruce seamen he had seen on board the Bride of Abydos. They were swarthy men clothed in rags. Nor was that Ramsbottom in the stern-sheets. Instead, it was someone with a heavy black moustache wearing some vestiges of a blue and silver uniform. The reddening sunset glared down upon him.