Somebody else answered in the same language. Hornblower tried to struggle up, and a restraining hand was laid on his shoulder. He rolled over, and with his eyes now accustomed to the darkness, he could see the three swarthy faces with the long black moustaches. These men were not Gibraltarians. On the instant he could guess who they were — the crew of one of the fire ships who had steered their craft in past the Mole, set fire to it, and made their escape in the boat. Foster was sitting doubled up, in the bottom of the boat, and now he lifted his face from his knees and stared round him.
“Who are these fellows?” he asked feebly — his struggle in the water had left him as weak as Hornblower.
“Spanish fire ship’s crew, I fancy, sir,” said Hornblower. “We’re prisoners.”
“Are we indeed!”
The knowledge galvanized him into activity just as it had Hornblower. He tried to get to his feet, and the Spaniard at the tiller thrust him down with a hand on his shoulder. Foster tried to put his hand away, and raised his voice in a feeble cry, but the man at the tiller was standing no nonsense, He brought out, in a lightning gesture, a knife from his belt. The light from the fire ship, burning itself harmlessly out on the shoal in the distance, ran redly along the blade, and Foster ceased to struggle. Men might call him Dreadnought Foster, but he could recognize the need for discretion.
“How are we heading?” he asked Hornblower, sufficiently quietly not to irritate their captors.
“North, sir. Maybe they’re going to land on the Neutral Ground and make for the Line.”
“That’s their best chance,” agreed Foster.
He turned his neck uncomfortably to look back up the harbour.
“Two other ships burning themselves out up there,” he said. “There were three fire ships came in, I fancy.”
“I saw three, sir.”
“Then there’s no damage done. But a bold endeavour. Whoever would have credited the Dons with making such an attempt?”
“They have learned about fire ships from us, perhaps, sir,” suggested Hornblower.
“We may have ‘nursed the pinion that impelled the steel,’ you think?”
“It is possible, sir.”
Foster was a cool enough customer, quoting poetry and discussing the naval situation while being carried off into captivity by a Spaniard who guarded him with a drawn knife. Cool might be a too accurate adjective; Hornblower was shivering in his wet clothes as the chill night air blew over him, and he felt weak and feeble after all the excitement and exertions of the day.
“Boat ahoy!” came a hail across the water; there was a dark nucleus in the night over there. The Spaniard in the sternsheets instantly dragged the tiller over, heading the boat directly away from it, while the two at the oars redoubled their exertions.
“Guard boat —” said Foster, but cut his explanation short at a further threat from the knife.
Of course there would be a boat rowing guard at this northern end of the anchorage; they might have thought of it.
“Boat ahoy!” came the hail again. “Lay on your oars or I’ll fire into you!”
The Spaniard made no reply, and a second later came the flash and report of a musket shot. They heard nothing of the bullet, but the shot would put the fleet — towards which they were heading again — on the alert. But the Spaniards were going to play the game out to the end. They rowed doggedly on.
“Boat ahoy!”
This was another hail, from a boat right ahead of them. The Spaniards at the oars ceased their efforts in dismay, but a roar from the steersman set them instantly to work again. Hornblower could see the new boat almost directly ahead of them, and heard another hail from it as it rested on its oars. The Spaniard at the tiller shouted an order, and the stroke oar backed water and the boat turned sharply; another order, and both rowers tugged ahead again and the boat surged forward to ram. Should they succeed in overturning the intercepting boat they might make their escape even now, while the pursuing boat stopped to pick up their friends.