Jack Tier; Or, The Florida Reef Part 43

"Our plan has been to catch him with our boats. With the greater draft of water of the Poughkeepsie, and the heels of your brig, sir, a regular chase about these reefs, as we knew from experience, would be almost hopeless. It was, therefore, necessary to use head-work, and some man-of-war traverses, in order to lay hold of him. Yesterday afternoon we hoisted out three cutters, manned them, and made sail in them all, under our luggs, working up against the trades. Each boat took its own course, one going off, the west end of the reef, one going more to the eastward, while I came this way, to look in at the Dry Tortugas. Spike will be lucky if he do not fall in with our third cutter, which is under the fourth lieutenant, should he stand on far on the same tack as that on which he left this place. Let him try his fortune, however. As for our boat, as soon as I saw the lamps burning in the lantern, I made the best of my way hither, and got sight of the brig, just as she loosened her sails. Then I took in my own luggs, and came on with the oars. Had we continued under our canvas, with this breeze, I almost think we might have overhauled the rascal."

"It would have been impossible, sir. The moment he got a sight of your sails, he would have been off in a contrary direction, and that brig really seems to fly, whenever there is a pressing occasion for her to move. You did the wisest thing you could have done, and barely missed him, as it was. He has not seen you at all, as it is, and will be all the less on his guard, against the next visit from the ship."

"Not seen me! Why, sir, the fellow fired at us _t_wice with a musket; why he did not use a carronade, is more than I can tell."

"Excuse me, Mr. Wallace; those two shots were intended for me, though I now fully comprehend why you answered them."

"Answered them! yes, indeed; who would not answer such a salute, and gun for gun, if he had a chance. I certainly thought he was firing at us, and having a musket between my legs, I let fly in return, and even the chaplain here will allow that was returning 'good for evil.' But explain your meaning."

Mulford now went into the details of the incidents connected with his coming into the moon-light, at the foot of the light-house. That he was not mistaken as to the party for whom the shots were intended, was plain enough to him, from the words that pa.s.sed aloud among the people of the Swash, as well as from the circ.u.mstance that both b.a.l.l.s struck the stones of the tower quite near him. This statement explained everything to Wallace, who now fully comprehended the cause and motive of each incident.

It was now near eleven, and Rose had prepared the table for supper. The gentlemen of the Poughkeepsie manifested great interest in the movements of the Hebe-like little attendant who was caring for their wants. When the cloth was to be laid, the midshipman offered his a.s.sistance, but his superior directed him to send a hand or two up from the wharf, where the crew of the cutter were lounging or sleeping after their cruise. These men had been thought of, too; and a vessel filled with smoking soup was taken to them, by one of their own number.

The supper was as cheerful as it was excellent. The dry humour of Wallace, the mild intelligence of the chaplain, the good sense of Harry, and the spirited information of Rose, contributed, each in its particular way, to make the meal memorable in more senses than one. The laugh came easily at that table, and it was twelve o'clock, before the party thought of breaking up.

The dispositions for the night were soon made. Rose returned to her little room, where she could now sleep in comfort, and without apprehension. The gentlemen made the disposition of their persons, that circ.u.mstances allowed; each finding something on which to repose, that was preferable to a plank. As for the men, they were accustomed to hard fare, and enjoyed their present good-luck, to the top of their bent.

It was quite late, before they had done "spinning their yarns," and "cracking their jokes," around the pot of turtle-soup, and the can of grog that succeeded it. By half-past twelve, however, everybody was asleep.

Mulford was the first person afoot the following morning. He left the house just as the sun rose, and perceiving that the "coast was clear"

of sharks, he threw off his light attire, and plunged into the sea.

Refreshed with this indulgence, he was returning toward the building, when he met the chaplain coming in quest of him. This gentleman, a man of real piety, and of great discretion, had been singularly struck, on the preceding night, with the narrative of our young mate; and he had not failed to note the allusions, slight as they were, and delicately put as they had been, to himself. He saw, at once, the propriety of marrying a couple so situated, and now sought Harry, with a view to bring about so desirable an event, by intimating his entire willingness to officiate. It is scarcely necessary to say that very few words were wanting, to persuade the young man to fall into his views; and as to Rose, he had handed her a short note on the same subject, which he was of opinion, would be likely to bring her to the same way of thinking.

An hour later, all the officers, Harry and Rose, were a.s.sembled in what might be termed the light-house parlour. The Rev. Mr. Hollins had neither band, gown, nor surplice; but he had what was far better, feeling and piety. Without a prayer-book he never moved; and he read the marriage ceremony with a solemnity that was communicated to all present.

The ring was that which had been used at the marriage of Rose's parents, and which she wore habitually, though not on the left hand. In a word, Harry and Rose were as firmly and legally united, on that solitary and almost unknown islet, as could have been the case, had they stood up before the altar of mother Trinity itself, with a bishop to officiate, and a legion of attendants. After the compliments which succeeded the ceremony, the whole party sat down to breakfast.

If the supper had been agreeable, the morning meal was not less so. Rose was timid and blushing, as became a bride, though she could not but feel how much more respectable her position became under the protection of Harry as his wife, than it had been while she was only his betrothed.

The most delicate deportment, on the part of her companions, soon relieved her embarra.s.sment however, and the breakfast pa.s.sed off without cause for an unhappy moment.

"The ship's standing in toward the light, sir," reported the c.o.c.kswain of the cutter, as the party was still lingering around the table, as if unwilling to bring so pleasant a meal to a close. "Since the mist has broke away, we see her, sir, even to her ports and dead-eyes."

"In that case, Sam, she can't be very far off," answered Wallace. "Ay, there goes a gun from her, at this moment, as much as to say, 'what has become of all of my boats?' Run down and let off a musket; perhaps she will make out to hear that, as we must be rather to windward, if anything."

The signal was given and understood. A quarter of an hour later, the Poughkeepsie began to shorten sail. Then Wallace stationed himself in the cutter, in the centre of one of the pa.s.sages, signalling the ship to come on. Ten minutes later still, the n.o.ble craft came into the haven, pa.s.sing the still burning light, with her topsails just lifting, and making a graceful sweep under very reduced sail, she came to the wind, very near the spot where the Swash had lain only ten hours before, and dropped an anchor.

(1) In the palmy days of the service, when Robert Smith was so long Secretary of the Navy, the ship's whisky went by this familiar _sobriquet_.

CHAPTER V.

The gull has found her place on sh.o.r.e; The sun gone down again to rest; And all is still but ocean's roar; There stands the man unbless'd.

But see, he moves--he turns, as asking where His mates? Why looks he with that piteous stare?

Dana.

Superst.i.tion would seem to be a consequence of a state of being, in which so much is shadowed forth, while so little is accurately known.

Our far-reaching thoughts range over the vast fields of created things, without penetrating to the secret cause of the existence of even a blade of gra.s.s. We can a.n.a.lyze all substances that are brought into our crucibles, tell their combinations and tendencies, give a scientific history of their formation, so far as it is connected with secondary facts, their properties, and their uses; but in each and all, there is a latent natural cause, that baffles all our inquiries, and tells us that we are merely men. This is just as true in morals, as in physics--no man living being equal to attaining the very faith that is necessary to his salvation, without the special aid of the spirit of the G.o.dhead; and even with that mighty support, trusting implicitly for all that is connected with a future that we are taught to believe is eternal, to "the substance of things _hoped_ for, and the evidence of things _unseen_." In a word, this earthly probation of ours, was intended for finite beings, in the sense of our present existence, leaving far more to be conjectured, than is understood.

Ignorance and superst.i.tion ever bear a close, and even a mathematical relation to each other. The degrees of the one, are regulated by the degrees of the other. He who knows the least believes the most; while he who has seen the most, without the intelligence to comprehend that which he has seen, feels, perhaps, the strongest inclination to refer those things which to him are mysteries, to the supernatural and marvellous.

Sailors have been, from time immemorial, more disposed than men of their cla.s.s on the land, to indulge in this weakness, which is probably heightened by the circ.u.mstance of their living constantly and vividly in the presence of powers that menace equally their lives and their means, without being in any manner subject to their control.

Spike, for a seaman of his degree of education, was not particularly addicted to the weakness to which we have just alluded. Nevertheless, he was not altogether free from it; and recent circ.u.mstances contributed to dispose him so much the more to admit a feeling which, like sin itself, is ever the most apt to insinuate itself at moments of extraordinary moral imbecility, and through the openings left by previous transgression. As his brig stood off from the light, the captain paced the deck, greatly disturbed by what had just pa.s.sed, and unable to account for it. The boat of the Poughkeepsie was entirely concealed by the islet, and there existing no obvious motive for wishing to return, in order to come at the truth, not a thought to that effect, for one moment, crossed the mind of the smuggler. So far from this, indeed, were his wishes, that the Molly did not seem to him to go half as fast as usual, in his keen desire to get further and further from a spot where such strange incidents had occurred.

As for the men forward, no argument was wanting to make _them_ believe that something supernatural had just pa.s.sed before their eyes. It was known to them all, that Mulford had been left on a naked rock, some thirty miles from that spot; and it was not easy to understand how he could now be at the Dry Tortugas, planted, as it might be, on purpose to show himself to the brig, against the tower, in the bright moonlight, "like a pictur' hung up for his old shipmates to look at."

Sombre were the tales that were related that night among them, many of which related to the sufferings of men abandoned on desert islands; and all of which bordered, more or less, on the supernatural. The crew connected the disappearance of the boat with Mulford's apparition, though the logical inference would have been, that the body which required planks to transport it, could scarcely be cla.s.sed with anything of the world of spirits. The links in arguments, however, are seldom respected by the illiterate and vulgar, who jump to their conclusions, in cases of the marvellous, much as politicians find an expression of the common mind in the prepared opinions of the few who speak for them, totally disregarding the dissenting silence of the million. While the men were first comparing their opinions on that which, to them, seemed to be so extraordinary, the Senor Montefalderon joined the captain in his walk, and dropped into a discourse touching the events which had attended their departure from the haven of the Dry Tortugas. In this conversation, Don Juan most admirably preserved his countenance, as well as his self-command, effectually preventing the suspicion of any knowledge on his part, that was not common to them both.

"You did leave the port with the salutes observed," the Mexican commenced, with the slightest accent of a foreigner, or just enough to show that he was not speaking in his mother tongue; "salutes paid and returned."

"Do you call that saluting, Don Wan? To me, that infernal shot sounded more like an echo, than anything else."

"And to what do _you_ ascribe it, Don Esteban?"

"I wish I could answer that question. Sometimes I begin to wish I had not left my mate on that naked rock."

"There is still time to repair the last wrong; we shall go within a few miles of the place where the Senor Enrique was left; and I can take the yawl, with two men, and go in search of him, while you are at work on the wreck."

"Do you believe it possible that he can be still there?" demanded Spike, looking suddenly and intently at his companion, while his mind was strangely agitated between hatred and dread. "If he is there, who and what was _he_ that we all saw so plainly at the foot of the light-house?"

"How should he have left the rock? He was without food or water; and no man, in all his vigour, could swim this distance. I see no means of his getting here."

"Unless some wrecker, or turtler, fell in with him, and took him off.

Ay, ay, Don Wan; I left him that much of a chance, at least. No man can say I _murdered_ my mate."

"I am not aware, Don Esteban, that any one _has_ said so hard a thing of you. Still, we have seen neither wrecker nor turtler since we have been here; and that lessens the excellent chance you left Don Enrique."

"There is no occasion, senor, to be so particular," growled Spike, a little sullenly, in reply. "The chance, I say, was a _good_ one, when you consider how many of them devils of wreckers hang about these reefs.

Let this brig only get fast on a rock, and they would turn up, like sharks, all around us, each with his maw open for salvage. But this is neither here nor there; what puzzles me, was what we saw at the light, half an hour since, and the musket that was fired back at us! I _know_ that the figure at the foot of the tower did not fire, for my eye was on him from first to last; and he had no arms. You were on the island a good bit, and must have known if the light-house keeper was there or not, Don Wan?"

"The light-house keeper _was_ there, Don Esteban--but he was in his _grave_."

"Ay, ay, one, I know, was drowned, and buried with the rest of them; there might, however, have been more than one. You saw none of the people that had gone to Key West, in or about the house, Don Wan?"

"None. If any persons have left the Tortugas to go to Key West, within a few days, not one of them has yet returned."

"So I supposed. No, it can be none of _them_. Then I saw his face as plainly as ever I saw it by moon-light, from aft, for'ard. What is your opinion about seeing the dead walk on the 'arth, Don Wan?"

"That I have never seen any such thing myself, Don Esteban, and consequently know nothing about it."

"So I supposed; I find it hard to believe it, I do. It may be a warning to keep us from-coming any more to the Dry Tortugas; and I must say I have little heart for returning to this place, after all that has fell out here. We can go to the wreck, fish up the doubloons, and be off for Yucatan. Once in one of your ports, I make no question that the merits of the Molly will make themselves understood, and that we shall soon agree on a price."

"What use could we put the brig to, Don Esteban, if we had her all ready for sea?"

"That is a strange question to ask in time of war! Give _me_ such a craft as the Molly, with sixty or eighty men on board her, in a war like this, and her 'arnin's should not fall short of half a million within a twelvemonth."

"Could we engage you to take charge of her, Don Esteban?"