HKB
"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from them, half cheerfully, but one voice was heard to grumble:
"It's all right, is it? Well, if it wasn't for that half-mile o' shortage, there'd be a mutinee-e on board o' this ship. I'd start it. I ain't a-goin' to get myself knocked on the head by Uncle Sam's own men."
There would very likely have been a mutiny, even as it was, if there had now been time for it to take shape. Thus far, the excitement of the chase had been in the captain's favor, but the seamen would have been legally justified in resisting him and bringing the ship to. His authority would have ceased, for he had no right to compel them to break the law or to run the risk of a broadside from a man-of-war.
Nearer, nearer, nearer, came both the dim outline of the Mexican coast and the white sails of the pursuing Portsmouth. Louder and more ominous grew the but half-suppressed murmurs of the sailors, but Captain Kemp's face was now wearing a hard, set look, and he was known to be a dangerous man to deal with. Something, which looked like the handle of a pistol, stuck out of one of his side pockets, and his fingers wandered to it now and then, as if he might be turning over in his mind the possibility of soon having to shoot a mutineer. Ned was staring anxiously back at the Yankee cruiser at the moment when his shoulder was gripped hard, and Senor Zuroaga almost whirled him around, exclaiming:
"Look! Look yonder! That's the Castle of San Juan de Ulua! Oh, but don't I wish it were a half-mile nearer! Hear that firing?"
The guns of the Portsmouth were indeed sounding at regular intervals, and she was evidently almost within range. She was also, however, well within the prescribed distance line which a hostile cruiser may not pass without being regarded as making the attack herself. Beyond a doubt, too, there must have been observers at the fort, who were already watching the operations of the two approaching vessels. Minutes passed, which were counted by Ned with a heart that beat so he almost thought he could hear it.
"I think we are safe now," began the senor, but he had been looking at the fort, and there was one important fact of which he was not aware.
Only a couple of minutes earlier, the captain of the Portsmouth had shouted angrily to his first lieutenant:
"No, sir! I will not let her get away. I will take her or sink her! Out with that starboard battery, and let them have it!"
Around swung the sloop, like the perfect naval machine that she was, and there quickly followed the reports of several guns at once. It was not a full broadside, but there was enough of it to have sunk the Goshhawk, if the iron thrown had struck her at or near the water-line. None of it did so, but the next exclamation of Senor Zuroaga was one of utter dismay, for the foremast of the bark had been cut off at the cap and there was a vast rent in her mainsail. Down tumbled a mass of spars and rigging, forward, and the ship could no longer obey her helm.
"All hands cut away wreckage!" shouted Captain Kemp. "We're all right. She won't dare come any nearer. Hurrah!"
It was a deep, thunderous roar from the castle which had called out that apparently untimely hurrah. It was the voice of a 64-pounder gun from the nearest rampart, and the shot it sent fell within ten feet of the Portsmouth's bows.
"Hullo!" exclaimed her captain, more angrily than ever. "We've run in almost to pointblank range of those heavy guns. About! About! Lieutenant, we must get out of this."