"Seems to me," said Mr. Davies deferentially, "like as if I heard some one a-firing off at intervals, so to say."There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air. "Seems to me,"said Bai-Jove-Judson, "as if I heard a screw. Stand by to slip her moorings."Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines grew plainer.
Then round the bend of the river came a remarkably prettily built white-painted gunboat with a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in the centre.
"Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy, astern.
Let go, all!" The slip-rope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat-iron waddled out into midstream with the white ensign at her one mast-head.
"Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of us," said Judson. "And down we go!""It's war - bloody war. He's going to fire," said Mr. Davies, looking up through the engine-room hatch.
The white gunboat without a word of explanation fired three guns at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on the banks into green chips.
Bai-Jove-Judson was at the wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped the boat to an almost respectable degree of speed.
It was an exciting chase, but it did not last for more than five minutes. The white gunboat fired again, and Mr. Davies in his engine-room gave a wild shout.
"What's the matter? Hit?" said Bai-Jove-Judson.
"No, I've just seized of your roos-de-gare. Beg y' pardon, sir.""Right 0! Just the half a fraction of a point more." The wheel turned under the steady hand, as Bai-Jove-Judson watched his marks on the bank coming in line swiftly as troops anxious to aid. The flat-iron smelt the shoal water under her, checked for an instant, and went on. "Now we're over. Come along, you thieves, there!"The white gunboat, too hurried even to fire, was storming in the wake of the flat-iron, steering as she steered. This was unfortunate, because the lighter craft was dead over the missing buoy.
"What you do here?" shouted a voice from the bows.
"I'm going on. Hold tight. Now you're arranged for!"There was a crash and a clatter as the white gunboat's nose took the shoal, and the brown mud boiled up in oozy circles under her forefoot. Then the current caught her stem by the starboard side and drove her broadside on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully.
There she heeled at an undignified angle, and her crew yelled aloud.
"Neat! Oh, damn neat!" quoth Mr. Davies, dancing on the engine-room plates, while the Kroo stokers grinned.
The flat-iron turned up-stream again, and passed under the hove-up starboard side of the white gunboat, to be received with howls and imprecations in a strange tongue. The stranded boat, exposed even to her lower strakes, was as defence-less as a turtle on its back, without the advantage of the turtle's plating. And the one big blunt gun in the bows of the flat-iron was unpleasantly near.
But the captain was valiant and swore mightily. Bai-Jove-Judson took no sort of notice. His business was to go up the river.
"We will come in a flotilla of boats and ecrazer your vile tricks," said the captain with language that need not be published.
Then said Bai-Jove-Judson, who was a linguist: "You stay o where you are o, or I'll leave a hole-o in your bottom o that will make you much os perforatados."There was a great deal of mixed language in reply, but Bai-Jove-Judson was out of hearing in a few minutes, and Mr. Davies, himself a man of few words, confided to one of his subordinates that Lieutenant Judson was "a most remarkable prompt officer in a way of putting it."For two hours the flat-iron pawed madly through the muddy water, and that which had been at first a mutter became a distinct rumble.
"Was war declared?" said Mr. Davies, and Bai-Jove-Judson laughed.
"Then, damn his eyes, he might have spoilt my pretty little engines. There's war up there, though."The next bend brought them full in sight of a small but lively village, built round a whitewashed mud house of some pretensions.
There were scores and scores of saddle-coloured soldiery on duty, white uniforms running to and fro and shouting round a man in a litter, and on a gentle slope that ran inland for four or five miles something like a brisk battle was raging round a rude stockade. A smell of unburied carcasses floated through the air and vexed the sensitive nose of Mr.
Davies, who spat over the side.
"I want to get this gun on that house," said Bai-Jove-Judson, indicating the superior dwelling over whose flat roof floated the blue and white flag. The little twin screws kicked up the water exactly as a hen's legs kick in the dust before she settles down to a bath. The little boat moved un easily from left to right, backed, yawed again, went ahead, and at last the gray blunt gun's nose was held as straight as a rifle-barrel on the mark indicated. Then Mr. Davies allowed the whistle to speak as it is not allowed to speak in Her Majesty's service on account of waste of steam. The soldiery of the village gathered into knots and groups and bunches, and the firing up the hill ceased, and every one except the crew of the flatiron yelled aloud. Something like an English cheer came down wind.
"Our chaps in mischief for sure, probably," said Mr. Davies. "They must have declared war weeks ago, in a kind of way, seems to me.""Hold her steady, you son of a soldier!" shouted Bai-Jove-Judson, as the muzzle fell off the white house.
Something rang as loudly as a ship's bell on the forward plates of the flat-iron, something spluttered in the water, and another thing cut a groove in the deck planking an inch in front of Bai-Jove-Judson's left foot. The saddle-coloured soldiery were firing as the mood took them, and the man in the litter waved a shining sword. The muzzle of the big gun kicked down a fraction as it was laid on the mud wall at the bottom of the house garden. Ten pounds of gunpowder shut up in a hundred pounds of metal was its charge.
