Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships Part 33

Sharks must be fed as well as other fish, you know. As to that Sir Marcus Wardhill, I like him not. I should have little compunction about sending him on his travels; but I was interested in his daughter, a stately lady, still bearing the marks of great beauty; the Lady Hilda, they call her."

"Yes, I used, as a boy, to think her very lovely," said Ronald, warmly.

"I may say she is so still," returned his captain. "But do you know, Morton, there is something very strange about her; she talked to me in the oddest way; inquired if I understood astrology, and would favour her by working out her horoscope, and would inform her when the lost one would return."

"She has been sorely tried," observed Ronald. "Her father and Lawrence Brindister are but sorry companions for one so gifted; and the death of her husband and loss of her child were blows she has never recovered."

Lord Claymore had not heard the circ.u.mstances of the case, and so Ronald gave him the whole story as he had heard it. His captain was much interested.

"What a delightful thread to unravel!" he exclaimed. "I should like to aid in it; but unless you have a clue, it is not likely that her son will be discovered."

"She lives on in hopes that he may," answered Ronald. "I pray that she may not be disappointed. I owe her a debt of grat.i.tude I can never repay for all the instruction she gave me."

"Perhaps you may be able to serve her," remarked Lord Claymore. "Though it strikes me, from what I can make out, that she was but repaying the debt she owes you."

Ronald did not inquire what his captain meant, for they were both summoned on deck with the pleasant information that a sail was in sight.

The frigate was at this time off the Azores.

"What does she look like?" was the question hurriedly put, as the captain himself was buckling his telescope over his shoulder preparatory to mounting the rigging to take a look at the stranger should the answer be promising.

"A ship, and a big one," was the reply.

In a few seconds Lord Claymore had joined the look-out man aloft. When the captain was thus active it was not likely that the officers and crew would neglect their duty. Lord Claymore took a long steady look at the stranger through his telescope, and returning on deck ordered the ship's course to be altered a couple of points, and all sail to be made in chase.

"Morton, I have a wonderful presentiment that yonder craft is loaded with the pewter and cobs we have been promising our fellows," he exclaimed, walking the deck with a quick step. "Her top-gallant-sails and royals have a foreign cut, and the blanched hue of cotton cloth such as the rich galleons of Spain usually carry. They are heavy sailers, too, and the 'Pallas,' as I thought she would, has shown herself light of heel. We shall get up with the chase before any third party steps in to snap up our prey."

Not only Ronald, but every man and boy in the ship entered fully into the captain's eagerness. All longed for prize-money; the greater number, probably, that they might spend it as sailors in those days got rid of their hard-earned gains, in wild extravagance and debauchery; a few might have thought of their old fathers, mothers, and sisters, whose comforts they hoped to increase; or some one, more romantic than his shipmates, might have had in view some quiet woodbine-covered cottage, on the sunny slope of a hill, with green fields and a sparkling stream below, a seaman's paradise, with an Eve as a companion.

Ronald Morton, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, could not help thinking of Edda Armytage, and the possibility of yet winning her; still, again and again he tried to overcome aspirations which appeared so utterly hopeless. Indeed, why should he ever wish to make her his?

Had she ever attempted to a.s.sure him that she did not share her father's feelings? Had she not, from what he had heard, been willingly receiving the attentions of Alfonse Gerardin, a mere adventurer, at best, who must have been guilty of the most barefaced falsehoods to have gained so completely, as he appeared to have done, the good opinion of a person generally so acute as Colonel Armytage? No, he did not want money for himself; it was to place his father in the position in life to which he was born, should it be, as he had every reason to hope, superior to that he now occupied; still, as he thought all this, and much more, his captain's remark, "With money you can do everything," rang in his ear.

Not a man or boy on board that ship who was not thinking at that moment of the same thing--money; most of them were talking of it too. With eager eyes they watched the chase as a wild beast does its prey, longing to get possession.

The stranger at first did not seem to have understood the character of the frigate. Her people were not keeping so good a look-out as were Lord Claymore's crew; when they did, all sail was crowded in flight.

Away she went before the wind. A stern chase is proverbially a long one; a tub can sail with the wind aft.

Many hours of the day had pa.s.sed: evening was approaching: should the night prove a dark one, she after all might escape. The captain was becoming anxious, so was every one on board. The nearer they had got to the chase the more like a Spaniard she appeared. All was done that could be thought of to make the frigate sail; every inch of canvas she could carry was set on her; studdingsails on either side hanging down to the very surface of the water, which they swept as she glided proudly on, while other light sails were placed even above the royals, till she looked like a lofty pyramid of snow gliding over the deep. Faster she glided--the breeze was increasing; now she rushed through the water; the officers looked over her sides and watched with satisfaction the foam which rose on either side and formed a long sparkling frothy line astern.

"We shall do now, Morton," exclaimed the captain, in high glee. "Don't you hear the dollars c.h.i.n.king away in her hold?"

Lord Claymore wanted the money--not that he was avaricious--far from that; but he had numberless schemes in view, and he knew full well that without the gold they could not be carried out.

As the chase was neared, the Spanish colours were seen flying at the peak. Not a shot did she fire. From the squareness of her yards and the whiteness of her canvas, as seen in the dusk of evening, as the "Pallas" got her within range of her guns, it was not altogether certain that she might not prove a man-of-war.

"So much the better," answered the captain, when Glover and the master gave it as their opinion that she was so. "We shall have more honour, though less gold. We must look out for the gold another time."

The men were sent to their quarters, and the ship was prepared for action. The chances that the chase would escape were small indeed.

"There's many a slip between the cup and the lip," observed Mr Hardman, the second lieutenant, who had experienced the truth of the saying in his own person so often that he seldom failed to give expression to it on every opportunity. Though he numbered many more years than either the captain or first lieutenant, he had not been promoted till some time after them. Sometimes when he foretold a slip, he was mistaken.

"Ready with a gun forward!" exclaimed the captain.

The chase was well within range.

"We don't want to injure her more than we can help," he added. "Send a shot past her first. Fire!"

The gloom prevented the shot being seen as it flew on over the surface just free of the chase.

The Spaniards thought that the next, might come in through the stern-windows. Down went her helm; studdingsail booms were cracking away on either side; royal and topgallant sheets were let fly; topsails and courses were clewed or brailed up, and the Spaniard yielded himself to the mercy of his captors.

The frigate brought to in a more deliberate way, taking care to be to windward of the prize; boats were instantly lowered and manned, and Hardman and Glover hurried off to take possession. Perhaps the captain would have liked to have gone, but it would have been undignified.

Glover soon returned with the satisfactory information that she was the "Carolina," a large Spanish ship, richly laden from the Havanah to Cadiz. A prize crew was immediately put on board, and the prisoners were removed to the "Pallas." They pulled their moustaches, lit their cigars, and resigned themselves to their lot. By dawn the next morning the "Carolina," in charge of her new masters, with Glover as commander, was on her way to Plymouth.

Lord Claymore's satisfaction was not small when he discovered that the "Carolina" formed one of a large convoy, and that it was believed the other ships were astern. Sharper than ever was the look-out kept for a strange sail. Day after day pa.s.sed, however, and no merchantman or other ships appeared. Hardman began to crow, though the loss was his as well as that of the rest: it was an odd amus.e.m.e.nt, though some men will suffer anything to prove that they are true prophets.

A week had pa.s.sed.

"I told you so, Morton," he observed. "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip. The convoy probably stole by us during the night when some of our volunteers, who had been keeping so sharp a look-out during the day, were nodding."

"Sail ho!" was sung out at that moment in a loud cheerful tone from the mast-head.

"Who'll prove right now?" exclaimed Morton, as he sprang aloft with his gla.s.s at his back.

Others were looking-out likewise. All sail was instantly made in chase.

It was some time, however, before it could be made out whether the stranger was friend or foe, man-of-war or merchantman. At last Hardman condescended to take a look at her.

"Those sails have a decided English cut about them," he observed, in a tone of satisfaction. "Depend on it she's not got a dollar on board that will ever enter our pockets."

"To my mind," observed Job Truefitt, who with Bob Doull was standing on the fore-topgallant cross-trees, "that craft out there looks as if she was come from the land where the gold and silver grows. He looks like a Don, every inch of him. Mark my words, mate, we shall line our pockets with the rhino, and have a pretty handsome sum to take home to our old mothers or sweethearts."

"Well for those who have them, but I have neither one nor t'other,"

answered Bob. "I've made up my mind to have a jolly spree on sh.o.r.e, and live like a lord till it's all gone."

"That won't be long, I suspect," said Job.

The conversation was cut short by a summons on deck. The frigate was nearing the chase. The whole of her hull could now be seen clearly from the deck. As to her character there was little doubt. She was a merchantman of considerable tonnage. However, as yet she showed no ensign at her peak by which her nation might be known. She was p.r.o.nounced to be Dutch, French, Danish, and Spanish in turn. At last the captain thought of sending for some of the prisoners to give their opinion on the subject. The Spaniards did not take long before they declared their belief that she was one of the convoy to which they belonged, and if they were not mistaken she was very richly laden.

A scarcely suppressed shout ran round the decks as the fact became known.

"Ay, but we've not got her yet," observed Hardman.

Both captain and crew looked as if they wished they could urge on the frigate by means more potent than the light breeze then blowing. What plans and projects might not even then have been working in that fertile brain! Still the chase did her best to escape.

"She has something to run for, or she would have given in before this,"

observed the captain, rapidly walking up and down the deck, and eyeing his antic.i.p.ated prize. "Her violent efforts to escape is a good sign, at all events."

There was now no longer any doubt as to the character of the chase, for she hoisted the Spanish flag, though she still held on. That she could escape seemed impossible, and Lord Claymore was unwilling to fire, for fear of damaging her, not in consequence of tenderness towards her, but because he hoped in a short time that she would become his property.

"Perhaps she has some notion that she will haul aft her sheets and escape to windward of us," observed the master.