Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/435

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 195 In going to leeward, he gave her a berth, and it was well he did, for she blew up while the Anne and Martha, as it was, were considerably within a quarter of a mile of her. The colonists ever afterwards considered an incident con nected with this explosion, as a sort of Providential mani festation of the favour of Heaven. The Martha was nearest to the ship, at the instant of her final disaster, and very many fragments were thrown around her ; a few even on her decks. Among the last was a human body, which was cast a great distance in the air, and fell, like a heavy clod, across the gunwale of the sloop. This proved to be the body of Waally, one of the arms having been cut away by a shot, three hours before ! Thus perished a constant and most wily enemy of the colony, and who had, more than once, brought it to the verge of destruction, by his cupidity and artifices. From this moment, the pirates thought little of anything but of effecting their retreat, and of getting out into open water again. The governor saw this, and pressed them hard. The twelve-pounder opened on the nearest brig, as soon as her shot would tell ; and even the Martha s swivel was heard, like the bark of a cur that joins in the clamour when a strange dog is set upon by the pack of a village. The colonists on shore flew into the settlements, to let it be known that the enemy was retreating, when every dwell ing poured out its inmates in pursuit. Even the females now appeared in arms ; there being no such incentive to patriotism, on occasions of the kind, as the cry that the battle has been won. Those whom it might have been hard to get within the sound of a gun, a few hours before, now became valiant, and pressed into the van, which bore a very different aspect, before a retreating foe, from that which it presented on their advance. In losing Waally, the strangers lost the only person among them who had any pretension to be thought a pilot. He knew very little of the channels to the Reef, at the best, though he had been there thrice ; but, now he was gone, no one left among them knew anything about them at all. Under all the circumstances, therefore, it is not surprising that the admiral should think more of extricating his two brigs from the narrow waters, than of pursuing hi*