Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 3

The night passed with­out in­ci­dent. The colonists were on the qui vive, and did not leave their post at the Chim­neys. The pi­rates, on their side, did not ap­pear to have made any at­tempt to land. Since the last shots fired at Ayr­ton not a re­port, not even a sound, had be­trayed the pres­ence of the brig in the neigh­bor­hood of the is­land. It might have been fan­cied that she had weighed an­chor, think­ing that she had to deal with her match, and had left the coast.

But it was no such thing, and when day be­gan to dawn the set­tlers could see a con­fused mass through the morn­ing mist. It was the “Speedy.”

“These, my friends,” said the en­gi­neer, “are the ar­range­ments which ap­pear to me best to make be­fore the fog com­plete­ly clears away. It hides us from the eyes of the pi­rates, and we can act with­out at­tract­ing their at­ten­tion. The most im­por­tant thing is, that the con­victs should be­lieve that the in­hab­itants of the is­land are nu­mer­ous, and con­se­quent­ly ca­pa­ble of re­sist­ing them. I there­fore pro­pose that we di­vide in­to three par­ties. The first of which shall be post­ed at the Chim­neys, the sec­ond at the mouth of the Mer­cy. As to the third, I think it would be best to place it on the islet, so as to pre­vent, or at all events de­lay, any at­tempt at land­ing. We have the use of two ri­fles and four mus­kets. Each of us will be armed, and, as we are am­ply pro­vid­ed with pow­der and shot, we need not spare our fire. We have noth­ing to fear from the mus­kets nor even from the guns of the brig. What can they do against these rocks? And, as we shall not fire from the win­dows of Gran­ite House, the pi­rates will not think of caus­ing ir­repara­ble dam­age by throw­ing shell against it. What is to be feared is, the ne­ces­si­ty of meet­ing hand-​to-​hand, since the con­victs have num­bers on their side. We must there­fore try to pre­vent them from land­ing, but with­out dis­cov­er­ing our­selves. There­fore, do not econ­omize the am­mu­ni­tion. Fire of­ten, but with a sure aim. We have each eight or ten en­emies to kill, and they must be killed!”

Cyrus Hard­ing had clear­ly rep­re­sent­ed their sit­ua­tion, al­though he spoke in the calmest voice, as if it was a ques­tion of di­rect­ing a piece of work and not or­der­ing a bat­tle. His com­pan­ions ap­proved these ar­range­ments with­out even ut­ter­ing a word. There was noth­ing more to be done but for each to take his place be­fore the fog should be com­plete­ly dis­si­pat­ed. Neb and Pen­croft im­me­di­ate­ly as­cend­ed to Gran­ite House and brought back a suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion. Gideon Spilett and Ayr­ton, both very good marks­men, were armed with the two ri­fles, which car­ried near­ly a mile. The four oth­er mus­kets were di­vid­ed among Hard­ing, Neb, Pen­croft, and Her­bert.

The posts were ar­ranged in the fol­low­ing man­ner:–

Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert re­mained in am­bush at the Chim­neys, thus com­mand­ing the shore to the foot of Gran­ite House.

Gideon Spilett and Neb crouched among the rocks at the mouth of the Mer­cy, from which the draw­bridges had been raised, so as to pre­vent any one from cross­ing in a boat or land­ing on the op­po­site shore.

As to Ayr­ton and Pen­croft, they shoved off in the boat, and pre­pared to cross the chan­nel and to take up two sep­arate sta­tions on the islet. In this way, shots be­ing fired from four dif­fer­ent points at once, the con­victs would be led to be­lieve that the is­land was both large­ly peo­pled and strong­ly de­fend­ed.

In the event of a land­ing be­ing ef­fect­ed with­out their hav­ing been able to pre­vent it, and al­so if they saw that they were on the point of be­ing cut off by the brig’s boat, Ayr­ton and Pen­croft were to re­turn in their boat to the shore and pro­ceed to­wards the threat­ened spot.

Be­fore start­ing to oc­cu­py their posts, the colonists for the last time wrung each oth­er’s hands.

Pen­croft suc­ceed­ed in con­trol­ling him­self suf­fi­cient­ly to sup­press his emo­tion when he em­braced Her­bert, his boy! and then they sep­arat­ed.

In a few mo­ments Hard­ing and Her­bert on one side, the re­porter and Neb on the oth­er, had dis­ap­peared be­hind the rocks, and five min­utes lat­er Ayr­ton and Pen­croft, hav­ing with­out dif­fi­cul­ty crossed the chan­nel, dis­em­barked on the islet and con­cealed them­selves in the clefts of its east­ern shore.

None of them could have been seen, for they them­selves could scarce­ly dis­tin­guish the brig in the fog.

It was half-​past six in the morn­ing.

Soon the fog be­gan to clear away, and the top­masts of the brig is­sued from the va­por. For some min­utes great mass­es rolled over the sur­face of the sea, then a breeze sprang up, which rapid­ly dis­pelled the mist.

The “Speedy” now ap­peared in full view, with a spring on her ca­ble, her head to the north, pre­sent­ing her lar­board side to the is­land. Just as Hard­ing had cal­cu­lat­ed, she was not more than a mile and a quar­ter from the coast.

The sin­is­ter black flag float­ed from the peak.

The en­gi­neer, with his tele­scope, could see that the four guns on board were point­ed at the is­land. They were ev­ident­ly ready to fire at a mo­ment’s no­tice.

In the mean­while the “Speedy” re­mained silent. About thir­ty pi­rates could be seen mov­ing on the deck. A few more on the poop; two oth­ers post­ed in the shrouds, and armed with spy­glass­es, were at­ten­tive­ly sur­vey­ing the is­land.

Cer­tain­ly, Bob Har­vey and his crew would not be able eas­ily to give an ac­count of what had hap­pened dur­ing the night on board the brig. Had this half-​naked man, who had forced the door of the pow­der-​mag­azine, and with whom they had strug­gled, who had six times dis­charged his re­volver at them, who had killed one and wound­ed two oth­ers, es­caped their shot? Had he been able to swim to shore? Whence did he come? What had been his ob­ject? Had his de­sign re­al­ly been to blow up the brig, as Bob Har­vey had thought? All this must be con­fused enough to the con­victs’ minds. But what they could no longer doubt was that the un­known is­land be­fore which the “Speedy” had cast an­chor was in­hab­it­ed, and that there was, per­haps, a nu­mer­ous colony ready to de­fend it. And yet no one was to be seen, nei­ther on the shore, nor on the heights. The beach ap­peared to be ab­so­lute­ly de­sert­ed. At any rate, there was no trace of dwellings. Had the in­hab­itants fled in­to the in­te­ri­or? Thus prob­ably the pi­rate cap­tain rea­soned, and doubt­less, like a pru­dent man, he wished to re­con­noi­ter the lo­cal­ity be­fore he al­lowed his men to ven­ture there.

Dur­ing an hour and a half, no in­di­ca­tion of at­tack or land­ing could be ob­served on board the brig. Ev­ident­ly Bob Har­vey was hes­itat­ing. Even with his strongest tele­scopes he could not have per­ceived one of the set­tlers crouched among the rocks. It was not even prob­able that his at­ten­tion had been awak­ened by the screen of green branch­es and creep­ers hid­ing the win­dows of Gran­ite House, and show­ing rather con­spic­uous­ly on the bare rock. In­deed, how could he imag­ine that a dwelling was hol­lowed out, at that height, in the sol­id gran­ite? From Claw Cape to the Mandible Capes, in all the ex­tent of Union Bay, there was noth­ing to lead him to sup­pose that the is­land was or could be in­hab­it­ed.

At eight o’clock, how­ev­er, the colonists ob­served a move­ment on board the “Speedy.” A boat was low­ered, and sev­en men jumped in­to her. They were armed with mus­kets; one took the yoke-​lines, four oth­ers the oars, and the two oth­ers, kneel­ing in the bows, ready to fire, re­con­noi­tered the is­land. Their ob­ject was no doubt to make an ex­am­ina­tion but not to land, for in the lat­ter case they would have come in larg­er num­bers. The pi­rates from their look-​out could have seen that the coast was shel­tered by an islet, sep­arat­ed from it by a chan­nel half a mile in width. How­ev­er, it was soon ev­ident to Cyrus Hard­ing, on ob­serv­ing the di­rec­tion fol­lowed by the boat, that they would not at­tempt to pen­etrate in­to the chan­nel, but would land on the islet.

Pen­croft and Ayr­ton, each hid­den in a nar­row cleft of the rock, saw them com­ing di­rect­ly to­wards them, and wait­ed till they were with­in range.

The boat ad­vanced with ex­treme cau­tion. The oars on­ly dipped in­to the wa­ter at long in­ter­vals. It could now be seen that one of the con­victs held a lead-​line in his hand, and that he wished to fath­om the depth of the chan­nel hol­lowed out by the cur­rent of the Mer­cy. This showed that it was Bob Har­vey’s in­ten­tion to bring his brig as near as pos­si­ble to the coast. About thir­ty pi­rates, scat­tered in the rig­ging, fol­lowed ev­ery move­ment of the boat, and took the bear­ings of cer­tain land­marks which would al­low them to ap­proach with­out dan­ger. The boat was not more than two ca­bles-​lengths off the islet when she stopped. The man at the tiller stood up and looked for the best place at which to land.

At that mo­ment two shots were heard. Smoke curled up from among the rocks of the islet. The man at the helm and the man with the lead-​line fell back­wards in­to the boat. Ayr­ton’s and Pen­croft’s balls had struck them both at the same mo­ment.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly a loud­er re­port was heard, a cloud of smoke is­sued from the brig’s side, and a ball, strik­ing the sum­mit of the rock which shel­tered Ayr­ton and Pen­croft, made it fly in splin­ters, but the two marks­men re­mained un­hurt.

Hor­ri­ble im­pre­ca­tions burst from the boat, which im­me­di­ate­ly con­tin­ued its way. The man who had been at the tiller was re­placed by one of his com­rades, and the oars were rapid­ly plunged in­to the wa­ter. How­ev­er, in­stead of re­turn­ing on board as might have been ex­pect­ed, the boat coast­ed along the islet, so as to round its south­ern point. The pi­rates pulled vig­or­ous­ly at their oars that they might get out of range of the bul­lets.

They ad­vanced to with­in five ca­bles-​lengths of that part of the shore ter­mi­nat­ed by Flot­sam Point, and af­ter hav­ing round­ed it in a semi­cir­cu­lar line, still pro­tect­ed by the brig’s guns, they pro­ceed­ed to­wards the mouth of the Mer­cy.

Their ev­ident in­ten­tion was to pen­etrate in­to the chan­nel, and cut off the colonists post­ed on the islet, in such a way, that what­ev­er their num­ber might be, be­ing placed be­tween the fire from the boat and the fire from the brig, they would find them­selves in a very dis­ad­van­ta­geous po­si­tion.

A quar­ter of an hour passed while the boat ad­vanced in this di­rec­tion. Ab­so­lute si­lence, per­fect calm reigned in the air and on the wa­ter.

Pen­croft and Ayr­ton, al­though they knew they ran the risk of be­ing cut off, had not left their post, both that they did not wish to show them­selves as yet to their as­sailants, and ex­pose them­selves to the “Speedy’s” guns, and that they re­lied on Neb and Gideon Spilett, watch­ing at the mouth of the riv­er, and on Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert, in am­bush among the rocks at the Chim­neys.

Twen­ty min­utes af­ter the first shots were fired, the boat was less than two ca­bles-​lengths off the Mer­cy. As the tide was be­gin­ning to rise with its ac­cus­tomed vi­olence, caused by the nar­row­ness of the straits, the pi­rates were drawn to­wards the riv­er, and it was on­ly by dint of hard row­ing that they were able to keep in the mid­dle of the chan­nel. But, as they were pass­ing with­in good range of the mouth of the Mer­cy, two balls salut­ed them, and two more of their num­ber were laid in the bot­tom of the boat. Neb and Spilett had not missed their aim.

The brig im­me­di­ate­ly sent a sec­ond ball on the post be­trayed by the smoke, but with­out any oth­er re­sult than that of splin­ter­ing the rock.

The boat now con­tained on­ly three able men. Car­ried on by the cur­rent, it shot through the chan­nel with the ra­pid­ity of an ar­row, passed be­fore Hard­ing and Her­bert, who, not think­ing it with­in range, with­held their fire, then, round­ing the north­ern point of the islet with the two re­main­ing oars, they pulled to­wards the brig.

Hith­er­to the set­tlers had noth­ing to com­plain of. Their ad­ver­saries had cer­tain­ly had the worst of it. The lat­ter al­ready count­ed four men se­ri­ous­ly wound­ed if not dead; they, on the con­trary, un­wound­ed, had not missed a shot. If the pi­rates con­tin­ued to at­tack them in this way, if they re­newed their at­tempt to land by means of a boat, they could be de­stroyed one by one.

It was now seen how ad­van­ta­geous the en­gi­neer’s ar­range­ments had been. The pi­rates would think that they had to deal with nu­mer­ous and well-​armed ad­ver­saries, whom they could not eas­ily get the bet­ter of.

Half an hour passed be­fore the boat, hav­ing to pull against the cur­rent, could get along­side the “Speedy.” Fright­ful cries were heard when they re­turned on board with the wound­ed, and two or three guns were fired with no re­sults.

But now about a dozen oth­er con­victs, mad­dened with rage, and pos­si­bly by the ef­fect of the evening’s pota­tions, threw them­selves in­to the boat. A sec­ond boat was al­so low­ered, in which eight men took their places, and while the first pulled straight for the islet, to dis­lodge the colonists from thence the sec­ond ma­neu­vered so as to force the en­trance of the Mer­cy.

The sit­ua­tion was ev­ident­ly be­com­ing very dan­ger­ous for Pen­croft and Ayr­ton, and they saw that they must re­gain the main­land.

How­ev­er, they wait­ed till the first boat was with­in range, when two well- di­rect­ed balls threw its crew in­to dis­or­der. Then, Pen­croft and Ayr­ton, aban­don­ing their posts, un­der fire from the dozen mus­kets, ran across the islet at full speed, jumped in­to their boat, crossed the chan­nel at the mo­ment the sec­ond boat reached the south­ern end, and ran to hide them­selves in the Chim­neys.

They had scarce­ly re­joined Cyrus Hard­ing and Her­bert, be­fore the islet was over­run with pi­rates in ev­ery di­rec­tion. Al­most at the same mo­ment, fresh re­ports re­sound­ed from the Mer­cy sta­tion, to which the sec­ond boat was rapid­ly ap­proach­ing. Two, out of the eight men who manned her, were mor­tal­ly wound­ed by Gideon Spilett and Neb, and the boat her­self, car­ried ir­re­sistibly on­to the reefs, was stove in at the mouth of the Mer­cy. But the six sur­vivors, hold­ing their mus­kets above their heads to pre­serve them from con­tact with the wa­ter, man­aged to land on the right bank of the riv­er. Then, find­ing they were ex­posed to the fire of the am­bush there, they fled in the di­rec­tion of Flot­sam Point, out of range of the balls.

The ac­tu­al sit­ua­tion was this: on the islet were a dozen con­victs, of whom some were no doubt wound­ed, but who had still a boat at their dis­pos­al; on the is­land were six, but who could not by any pos­si­bil­ity reach Gran­ite House, as they could not cross the riv­er, all the bridges be­ing raised.

“Hal­lo,” ex­claimed Pen­croft as he rushed in­to the Chim­neys, “hal­lo, cap­tain! What do you think of it, now?”

“I think,” an­swered the en­gi­neer, “that the com­bat will now take a new form, for it can­not be sup­posed that the con­victs will be so fool­ish as to re­main in a po­si­tion so un­fa­vor­able for them!”

“They won’t cross the chan­nel,” said the sailor. “Ayr­ton and Mr. Spilett’s ri­fles are there to pre­vent them. You know that they car­ry more than a mile!”

“No doubt,” replied Her­bert; “but what can two ri­fles do against the brig’s guns?”

“Well, the brig isn’t in the chan­nel yet, I fan­cy!” said Pen­croft.

“But sup­pose she does come there?” said Hard­ing.

“That’s im­pos­si­ble, for she would risk run­ning aground and be­ing lost!”

“It is pos­si­ble,” said Ayr­ton. “The con­victs might prof­it by the high tide to en­ter the chan­nel, with the risk of ground­ing at low tide, it is true; but then, un­der the fire from her guns, our posts would be no longer ten­able.”

“Con­found them!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “it re­al­ly seems as if the black­guards were prepar­ing to weigh an­chor.”

“Per­haps we shall be obliged to take refuge in Gran­ite House!” ob­served Her­bert.

“We must wait!” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing.

“But Mr. Spilett and Neb?” said Pen­croft.

“They will know when it is best to re­join us. Be ready, Ayr­ton. It is yours and Spilett’s ri­fles which must speak now.”

It was on­ly too true. The “Speedy” was be­gin­ning to weigh her an­chor, and her in­ten­tion was ev­ident­ly to ap­proach the islet. The tide would be ris­ing for an hour and a half, and the ebb cur­rent be­ing al­ready weak­ened, it would be easy for the brig to ad­vance. But as to en­ter­ing the chan­nel, Pen­croft, con­trary to Ayr­ton’s opin­ion, could not be­lieve that she would dare to at­tempt it.

In the mean­while, the pi­rates who oc­cu­pied the islet had grad­ual­ly ad­vanced to the op­po­site shore, and were now on­ly sep­arat­ed from the main­land by the chan­nel.

Be­ing armed with mus­kets alone, they could do no harm to the set­tlers, in am­bush at the Chim­neys and the mouth of the Mer­cy; but, not know­ing the lat­ter to be sup­plied with long-​range ri­fles, they on their side did not be­lieve them­selves to be ex­posed. Quite un­cov­ered, there­fore, they sur­veyed the islet, and ex­am­ined the shore.

Their il­lu­sion was of short du­ra­tion. Ayr­ton’s and Gideon Spilett’s ri­fles then spoke, and no doubt im­part­ed some very dis­agree­able in­tel­li­gence to two of the con­victs, for they fell back­wards.

Then there was a gen­er­al hel­ter-​skel­ter. The ten oth­ers, not even stop­ping to pick up their dead or wound­ed com­pan­ions, fled to the oth­er side of the islet, tum­bled in­to the boat which had brought them, and pulled away with all their strength.

“Eight less!” ex­claimed Pen­croft. “Re­al­ly, one would have thought that Mr. Spilett and Ayr­ton had giv­en the word to fire to­geth­er!”

“Gen­tle­men,” said Ayr­ton, as he reload­ed his gun, “this is be­com­ing more se­ri­ous. The brig is mak­ing sail!”

“The an­chor is weighed!” ex­claimed Pen­croft.

“Yes, and she is al­ready mov­ing.”

In fact, they could dis­tinct­ly hear the creak­ing of the wind­lass. The “Speedy” was at first held by her an­chor; then, when that had been raised, she be­gan to drift to­wards the shore. The wind was blow­ing from the sea; the jib and the fore­top­sail were hoist­ed, and the ves­sel grad­ual­ly ap­proached the is­land.

From the two posts of the Mer­cy and the Chim­neys they watched her with­out giv­ing a sign of life, but not with­out some emo­tion. What could be more ter­ri­ble for the colonists than to be ex­posed, at a short dis­tance, to the brig’s guns, with­out be­ing able to re­ply with any ef­fect? How could they then pre­vent the pi­rates from land­ing?

Cyrus Hard­ing felt this strong­ly, and he asked him­self what it would be pos­si­ble to do. Be­fore long, he would be called up­on for his de­ter­mi­na­tion. But what was it to be? To shut them­selves up in Gran­ite House, to be be­sieged there, to re­main there for weeks, for months even, since they had an abun­dance of pro­vi­sions? So far good! But af­ter that? The pi­rates would not the less be mas­ters of the is­land, which they would rav­age at their plea­sure, and in time, they would end by hav­ing their re­venge on the pris­on­ers in Gran­ite House.

How­ev­er, one chance yet re­mained; it was that Bob Har­vey, af­ter all, would not ven­ture his ship in­to the chan­nel, and that he would keep out­side the islet. He would be still sep­arat­ed from the coast by half a mile, and at that dis­tance his shot could not be very de­struc­tive.

“Nev­er!” re­peat­ed Pen­croft, “Bob Har­vey will nev­er, if he is a good sea­man, en­ter that chan­nel! He knows well that it would risk the brig, if the sea got up ev­er so lit­tle! And what would be­come of him with­out his ves­sel?”

In the mean­while the brig ap­proached the islet, and it could be seen that she was en­deav­or­ing to make the low­er end. The breeze was light, and as the cur­rent had then lost much of its force, Bob Har­vey had ab­so­lute com­mand over his ves­sel.

The route pre­vi­ous­ly fol­lowed by the boats had al­lowed her to re­con­noi­ter the chan­nel, and she bold­ly en­tered it.

The pi­rate’s de­sign was now on­ly too ev­ident; he wished to bring her broad­side to bear on the Chim­neys and from there to re­ply with shell and ball to the shot which had till then dec­imat­ed her crew.

Soon the “Speedy” reached the point of the islet; she round­ed it with ease; the main­sail was braced up, and the brig hug­ging the wind, stood across the mouth of the Mer­cy.

“The scoundrels! they are com­ing!” said Pen­croft.

At that mo­ment, Cyrus Hard­ing, Ayr­ton, the sailor, and Her­bert, were re­joined by Neb and Gideon Spilett.

The re­porter and his com­pan­ion had judged it best to aban­don the post at the Mer­cy, from which they could do noth­ing against the ship, and they had act­ed wise­ly. It was bet­ter that the colonists should be to­geth­er at the mo­ment when they were about to en­gage in a de­ci­sive ac­tion. Gideon Spilett and Neb had ar­rived by dodg­ing be­hind the rocks, though not with­out at­tract­ing a show­er of bul­lets, which had not, how­ev­er, reached them.

“Spilett! Neb!” cried the en­gi­neer. “You are not wound­ed?”

“No,” an­swered the re­porter, “a few bruis­es on­ly from the ric­ochet! But that cursed brig has en­tered the chan­nel!”

“Yes,” replied Pen­croft, “and in ten min­utes she will have an­chored be­fore Gran­ite House!”

“Have you formed any plan, Cyrus?” asked the re­porter.

“We must take refuge in Gran­ite House while there is still time, and the con­victs can­not see us.”

“That is, my opin­ion, too,” replied Gideon Spilett, “but once shut up–“

“We must be guid­ed by cir­cum­stances,” said the en­gi­neer.

“Let us be off, then, and make haste!” said the re­porter.

“Would you not wish, cap­tain, that Ayr­ton and I should re­main here?” asked the sailor.

“What would be the use of that, Pen­croft?” replied Hard­ing. “No. We will not sep­arate!”

There was not a mo­ment to be lost. The colonists left the Chim­neys. A bend of the cliff pre­vent­ed them from be­ing seen by those in the brig, but two or three re­ports, and the crash of bul­lets on the rock, told them that the “Speedy” was at no great dis­tance.

To spring in­to the lift, hoist them­selves up to the door of Gran­ite House, where Top and Jup had been shut up since the evening be­fore, to rush in­to the large room, was the work of a minute on­ly.

It was quite time, for the set­tlers, through the branch­es, could see the “Speedy,” sur­round­ed with smoke, glid­ing up the chan­nel. The fir­ing was in­ces­sant, and shot from the four guns struck blind­ly, both on the Mer­cy post, al­though it was not oc­cu­pied, and on the Chim­neys. The rocks were splin­tered, and cheers ac­com­pa­nied each dis­charge. How­ev­er, they were hop­ing that Gran­ite House would be spared, thanks to Hard­ing’s pre­cau­tion of con­ceal­ing the win­dows when a shot, pierc­ing the door, pen­etrat­ed in­to the pas­sage.

“We are dis­cov­ered!” ex­claimed Pen­croft.

The colonists had not, per­haps, been seen, but it was cer­tain that Bob Har­vey had thought prop­er to send a ball through the sus­pect­ed fo­liage which con­cealed that part of the cliff. Soon he re­dou­bled his at­tack, when an­oth­er ball hav­ing torn away the leafy screen, dis­closed a gap­ing aper­ture in the gran­ite.

The colonists’ sit­ua­tion was des­per­ate. Their re­treat was dis­cov­ered. They could not op­pose any ob­sta­cle to these mis­siles, nor pro­tect the stone, which flew in splin­ters around them. There was noth­ing to be done but to take refuge in the up­per pas­sage of Gran­ite House, and leave their dwelling to be dev­as­tat­ed, when a deep roar was heard, fol­lowed by fright­ful cries!

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions rushed to one of the win­dows–

The brig, ir­re­sistibly raised on a sort of wa­ter-​spout, had just split in two, and in less than ten sec­onds she was swal­lowed up with all her crim­inal crew!